Selected Press Jay Scheib

Home , Actor Tour, Elizabeth LeCompte, Joe Mantello

Selected Press

Jay Scheib Feature Articles, Reviews, and General Press

Jay Scheib | [email protected] | Selected Feature Articles and Reviews The best New York theater directors - Time Out New York

Time Out New York Kids Time Out Chicago Time Out Worldwide Travel Book store Subscribe to Time Out New York Subscriber Services

Home Art Books Clubs Comedy Dance Film Games Gay I, New York Kids Museums Music Opera & Classical

Own This City Real Estate Restaurants & Bars Sex & Dating Shopping Spas & Sport Theater Travel TV Video

Tools Theater E-mail Time Out New York / Mar 25, 2009 Print New York's best Rate & comment Report an error The best New York theater directors

Share this

1. Jay Scheib Mixing multimedia with deadpan-cool (and very sexy) actors, Scheib is forging new ways of seeing drama.

2. Ken Rus Schmoll Schmoll takes on more difficult playwrights, teasing out the ambiguity and menace in their words.

3. Elizabeth LeCompte As chief engineer of the Wooster Group’s postmodern tech spectacles, she has influenced a generation of experimenters.

4. Anne Kauffman She helmed two of our favorite shows in years: The Thugs and God’s Ear. Sensitive to thorny language, she makes the murky crystal clear. Cheap tickets 5. Joe Mantello Seats for a song Sure, he helmed the blockbuster Wicked, but the former actor is most at home Find great deals on working on tough drama on an intimate level. tickets. 6. Richard Foreman Guides They don’t call him the king of the avant-garde for nothing; Foreman is the auteur’s Student Guide auteur: He writes, designs, directs and even operates the sound. Practical (and frivolous) 7. Robert Woodruff advice for the scholarly. It’s criminal how little he works in the city, but when he does, we’re transfixed by the Real Estate Guide On the blogs elegant brutality of his cool tableaux. Score a great deal. Visitors Guide 8. Stephen Daldry Everything you need to get Without this bold British director (of stage and screen), Billy Elliot wouldn’t have been The cast of Hair the most out of NYC. nearly so magical. comes out for Continuing Education Never stop learning. 9. Julie Taymor marriage » We’re waiting for a follow-up as impressive as The Lion King, but until then, we’ll still A one-man remake of get weepy over "Circle of Life." Offers First » 10. Bartlett Sher Nightlife + Puppetry of the Penis: This guy can do everything: old-fashioned musicals like South Pacific and great Get real-time information for open » bars, clubs and restaurants drama like Awake and Sing! He’s a treasure. on your mobile. Irena's Vow takes liberties Prizes & promotions with a Holocaust » Win prizes and get discounts, event invites and more. Free flix Comments | Leave a comment Get free tickets to hot new movie releases. No comments yet. Click here and be the first! The TONY Lounge Stop by for a drink at our bar in midtown Manhattan. Video Subscribe Subscribe now and save 90%!

Subscribe now For just $19.97 a year, you'll get hundreds of listings and free events each week, Give a gift plus our special issues and guides, including Cheap Eats, Great Spas, Fall Subscriber services Preview, Holiday Gift Guide and more!

This Beautiful In the Heights Chekhov 101 City

http://newyork.timeout.com/articles/theater/72875/the-best-new-york-theater-directors[4/6/09 5:02:35 PM]

K_\ \og\i`d\ekXc [`i\Zkfi `j dXb`e^ X eXd\ ]fi _`dj\c] flkj`[\ k_\ kiX[`k`feXc i\j`[\ek k_\Xki\ e\knfib JZ_\`Y

9P 88IFE D8:B J:?CF==

mportantthingstoknowaboutdirectorJayScheib:Born: “Oneofmygoalsistopaymyactorsasmuchasthey 1969,Shenandoah,Iowa.Occupation:associateprofessorin wouldmaketemping,”hesays.Still,hisregularactors,a musicandtheatrearts,MassachusettsInstituteofTechnol- groupofsixtoeightthatonemightcalltheJayScheibPlay- ogy.Numberofproductionsslatedfor2008:ﬁve,threeof ers,moanlikeaddictswhentheythinkofworkingwithhim themworldpremieres,takingplaceinthreecountries.(“Last again.“WheneverIgetacallfromJay,Ijuststopthepresses,” season,Ihadsevenpremieresinﬁvedifferentcountries,” saysNewYork–basedperformerEricDeanScott.Heand @ Scheibsaysevenly.Hesays therestofTeamScheib everything evenly.) Number aregamblingbigas ofresidenttheatregigsthis they develop Scheib’s yearandeveryyearhereto- exuberantly physical, fore: zero. heavily technologized Howcansuchadirec- butemotionallyopen torasScheib—who,notso style of theatremaking. incidentally, has also writ- Audiencesandcritics tenoradaptedscriptsfor mayloveitorhateit, aboutadozenofhisown buttheyarerarelyindif- productions—earn degrees ferent. Scheib himself andawardsfromimpeccably cites Tadeusz Kantor,

conventional bodies (B.A., ?8P;

.' 8D

of the resident theatre’s Humana Festival of New American Plays. Desert is a smashup ofrelationshipsinspiredbytheworksof filmmaker Michelangelo Antonioni and Three Mile Island transcripts. Disintegrat- ing couples video and re-video each other withmultiplelivefeedsdesignedbyScheib’s frequent collaborator Leah Gelpe. InMarch,hisas-yet-untitledMars projectpremieresatP.S.122,combining scientiﬁcfactandﬁctiontoimaginegenuine space colonization. In July, Scheib’s staging of the biographical song cycle by the gypsy cabaret punk band World Inferno Friendship Society, titled AddictedtoBadIdeas:Peter Lorre’s Twentieth Century, has its European

premiere at the Salzburg Sommerszene (it IFJ< :8CC8?8E playedthispastSeptemberatthePhiladelphia Nfic[ @e]\ief =i`\e[j_`g JfZ`\kp è 8[[`Zk\[ kf 9X[ @[\Xj Xk k_\ G_`cX[\cg_`X C`m\ 8ikj =\jk`mXc% LiveArtsFestival).ThiscomingSeptember, notfarawayinBudapest,hewilladaptPhilip ofGertrudeStein’sTheMakingofAmericans Scheibistallandlanky,withthick K.Dick’ssciencefictioninapiececalled at the Walker Art Center. Scheib is writing brown curly hair going gray and a square, TimeAgainandAgain,forPontMühely the libretto. friendlyfacewithapointofachin.He theatre (whose actors also plan to take part And that’s the year. Add to that at least moves and speaks casually—at a roundtable intheMarsproject,iffundingpermits). one student production, various readings, discussion,he’drathersprawlthansit.A Anengagementtentativelyscheduledfor teaching.“Forthepastthreeyears,I’vebeen formerhighschooltrack-and-fielder,hecan December will bring him to Minneapolis to booked a year and half in advance,” he says, live in his body as well as his mind. (The directthepremiereofAnthonyGatto’sopera again, evenly. “This year it’s almost two.” result,perhaps,ofhisMidwesternfarm-boy

.) 8D

EJ8C;8 @E\idXepËj violencewasdrawntothe bringtotheprocessandhowyouandonlyyou JXXice[`jZ_\j JkXXkjk_\Xk\i% surface,enactedwithbox- canbringthatthing,”saysanotherfrequent ing, slap fights, compulsive actor-collaborator April Sweeney. When their upbringing. Actor Aimée Phelan-Deconinck vomiting and semi-gymnastic stunts. Was extensivetableworkonWomen finally ended, remembers, “In Germany, we were outside this acting or contact improv? It played like Scheibbroughtthecasttoitsfeetwithsmall a rehearsal space. A shirt was in a tree, very both—and, at the first show, also a bit like exercises and wild-card requests—recipes high, and he lassoed it.”) porn (when they’re talking, you just want formomentstheactorswouldgooffand This casualness is also deceptive—or theaction).ButwhenIreturnedforthefinal create.“Wecomposedalistofthingsto no longer the whole story. The sprawling show of the run, all was knit together: sen- have,”saysScott,“like30secondsofarepeti- productionsofHeinerMüllerandofScheib’s sible,Argentineatthesource,butAmerican tionoronemomentofthesmallestpossible own works (produced by his own theatres, in tone and, most important, continuously violentevent.”Oneactorknewhowtobox. theArcadeTheatreandtheAmericanThe- atre Institute) that gave him outlaw cred in Minneapolisinthe’90shavebeenreplaced, 10 years later, by shows that display a more focused mind and structured development.

N?8K I

A8E'/ 8D

They used it. Dance-trained suggests a formal economic Phelan-Deconinck can stretch relationship that they do not herankleaboveherhead,casu- yet have). Her role is ﬂexible, ally.Sotheyusedthattoo. she says, but the management LikethelatePolishexper- responsibilities are now hers. imentalistKantor,Scheibgives Financialstabilityisstillagoal. titlestodifferentperiodsofhis “Wefantasizeabouttaking work.Thepastsevenyears, over one of the regional the- ending with Desert,were“The atres,”shesays,evenasshe Flight out of Naturalism.” A admitsshehasnocontactwith newera,“SimulatedCities/ them. Simulated Systems,” is being Howlongthisalternative born with the Mars project. circuitcansustainthemisa Scheib’s research bent is hanging question. “I put the supportedbyhiscurrentberth work out; I write letters. Most

at MIT, which, he says, forces ?8P;

.+ 8D

By Helen Shaw

MISSION CONTROL Scheib probes a strange planet. Photograph: Naomi White

Deep in the belly of an abandoned vault on Wall Street, a man with a lizard tail talks softly to his foam claws as another stages an aggressive seduction in a boardroom. An almost whisper-soft suggestion—“Could you try that a little more tenderly?”—comes from the lanky director crouching at the lovers’ feet. Even though embraces in Jay Scheib’s shows usually look like wrestling holds, the note persuades actor Caleb Ham- mond to grip his paramour slightly less viciously—as he half-nelsons her into a revolving chair. The lizard picks up a camera. http://www.timeout.com/newyork/articles/theater/28605/martian-to-a-different-drummer Welcome to Mars. Or at least, welcome to a rehearsal of Untitled Mars: This Title May Change, a droll, discom- bobulating trip to the Red Planet as dreamed up by Scheib. An unlikely collision of scientific experiment and Philip K. Dick, the show takes its inspiration from one of the Mars Desert Research Stations, a deadly serious outpost where researchers wear space suits and run around the Utah desert. While the scientists simulate life on Mars, Scheib’s company will simulate the scientists—though with a significantly lower budget. Set designer Peter Ksander describes the mash-up of sci-fi and reality as the new alienation effect: “Jay is using Mars in the same way that Brecht used the Thirty Years War.” It’s not that alien: The 38-year-old director lives in Cam- bridge, Massachusetts and teaches at MIT, where some of his students might actually have a crack at being Mars pioneers.

As with almost all of Scheib’s work, the show will be thick with video, much of it shot live in the room. He may not want to become a one-trick pony (“I have an Iphigenia coming up that has no video at all!” he assures us. “Maybe three light cues!”), but Scheib is still known for his multimedia work. Video appears in most of his shows, its function changing to create phantoms (The Vomit Talk of Ghosts), a sensation of surveillance (This Is the End of Sleeping) or a self-consciously cinematic composition (the Godard-inflected This Place Is a Desert). But the director claims there is a constant. “It all stems from trying to work on naturalism,” he explains. “I wanted to take up the game that all my incredibly cool teachers—Robert Woodruff and Anne Bogart—had said was dead. It was my rebellion.”

The resulting works, exquisitely designed with the lackadaisical rhythms of everyday speech, look totally unlike the rest of the New York avant-garde, though they ring bells with theater buffs in Germany and France. “I am synthesizing techniques that already exist,” Scheib readily admits. “It’s just that in Europe, the Wooster Group isn’t on the fringes—they’ve been folded into the mainstream.”

Not everybody is a fan. Scheib’s dedication to observing human behavior forces theatrical time to slow to something like real time, and the pace downshift can leave viewers impatient and disoriented. (Tip: Pretend you’re in a gallery watching an installation.) And while theater has been incorporating projection for decades, audiences still rankle at how the video steals focus. Says Scheib: “Desert upset a lot of people. Theater audiences feel bad that they’re watching a screen. But for me, video is a delivery system. It’s simply a way to bring the performer closer.”

Scheib may be the most acclaimed experimental American director whose work you have never seen. The New York premiere of This Place Is a Desert during Under the Radar in January moved him into the critical spotlight, but this production at P.S. 122 will be his first high-profile run of any length here.

New York economics hobble Scheib’s process. His languorous, ensemble-driven works need long rehearsal periods and the kind of technical fine-tuning that can’t be done on Off-Off Broadway’s panicky schedule. At MIT, he develops work in peace, and then spends roughly four months in Europe making pieces at well-funded spots like the Staatstheater Saarbrücken or Salzburg’s Mozarteum. The expense of dealing with Equity and New York real estate drives our most interesting directors into the arms of European state funding.

Another major director who gigs too rarely in New York, Woodruff taught Scheib, but now sees him as a col- league. “It’s great that he found a home at MIT,” Woodruff says. “He can fly off to Europe, but he still has a place to do his research. If you find another setup like that—please tell me first.” The struggle for funding is just another reason to make Untitled Mars. “You should go to these space-vision conferences,” Scheib says with a chuckle. “That community sounds just like a theater conference—it’s always about the lack of funding. It’s very rarely about art.”

Untitled Mars: This Title May Change is at P.S. 122.

http://www.timeout.com/newyork/articles/theater/28605/martian-to-a-different-drummer

Theater Time Out New York / Issue 655 : Apr 16–22, 2008 Untitled Mars: This Title May Change P.S. 122 Conceived and directed by Jay Scheib. With ensemble cast. 1hr 30mins. No Intermission.

SPACE ODDITY Sweeney, right, encounters an astronaut. Photograph: Justin Bernhaut

Director Jay Scheib doesn’t look like a geek. With his art-school specs, tousled hair and stylish attire, this laid-back orchestrator of multimedia installations surrounds himself with strikingly attractive actors and sexy technology. Yet scratch the surface and under the hipster auteur you might find a chubby nerd building a spaceship out of tin foil and cardboard in the garage. Now, Scheib and his dedicated actor-technicians have graduated to fancier materials with Untitled Mars: This Title May Change, a docu-video-performance piece that merges speculative science and avant-garde theatrics.

The elaborate, multizoned playing space created by Peter Ksander (the most ingenious set designer working downtown) is a re- creation of the Mars Desert Research Station in Utah—itself a simulation of the Martian landscape, where scientists hope we’ll establish a colony. The plot (related in elliptical fragments) is a crude pasteup of soap-opera seductions and sci-fi pulp, featuring a real-estate villain (Caleb Hammond), a heroic repair woman (Tanya Selvaratnam) and a scientist (April Sweeney) who may have found a link between schizophrenia and clairvoyance. Oh, and there’s a guy in green makeup with a giant lizard tail.

Using live video feeds and editing software to create the illusion of walking on the Martian surface, Scheib masterfully blends high- tech effects with his performers, who wrestle and simulate sex with gusto. (He himself appears, quizzing real scientists about space exploration via Skype linkup.) Even though the message—wherever we humans go, we’ll bring our problems—is old as Ray Bradbury, at least the vehicle is super space age. (See also “Martian to a different drummer,” page 161.)

—David Cote http://www.timeout.com/newyork/events/off-off-broadway/54302/521200/untitled-mars Theater

Sightlines Untitled Mars: Lost in Space Jay Schleib's beguiling, perplexing trip to the red planet by Alexis Soloski April 15th, 2008 12:00 AM

Space case: Untitled Mars (This Title May Change) Justin Bernhaut

"Is there any life on Mars?" David Bowie and various scientists have long inquired. Writer-director-performer Jay Scheib doesn't answer their query, but he does provide a lively look at the attempt to populate the red planet in Untitled Mars (This Title May Change). In collaboration with MIT scientists at the Mars Desert Research Station (MDRS) and members of Budapest's Pont Mühely theater company, Scheib heads a theatrical mission to that far-off sphere.

The script is utterly jumbled—a fusion of Dr. Robert Zubrin's scholarly treatise The Case for Mars, Philip K. Dick's science-fiction Martian Time-Slip, live video conferencing with a tart-tongued aerospace grad student, as well as footage and transcripts from MDRS. The play primarily discusses the potential of a one-way mission to Mars. But it also includes romantic relationships, sinister experiments, and dodgy real-estate deals.

With three video screens, various computer monitors, and three separate stage environments, the plot isn't the only perplexing el- ement. Often, the eye doesn't know where to settle. Yet what a pleasure to encounter an artist like Scheib, with so many ideas and so many means of presenting them. And if the narrative rather baffles, the visual images—in all their plenitude—are arresting, as are the attractive actors. In a video clip, Dr. Zubrin insists: "We have to go to Mars simply because it's there." If Scheib's leading, we just might go along for the ride.

Untitled Mars (This Title May Change) By Jay Scheib, P.S.122, 150 First Avenue, 212-352-3101 http://www.villagevoice.com/theater/0816,sightlines-1,411867,11.html Goings On About Town THE THEATRE

April 28, 2008

UNTITLED MARS (THIS TITLE MAY CHANGE)

Jay Scheib’s antic play—half lab-rat experiment and half sex farce—grew out of a collaboration with M.I.T. researchers who are studying the possibility of a manned expedition to Mars. Scheib imagines a tightly controlled Martian colony (or is it a simulation?) that devolves into an orgy of greed, lust, and in- sanity. Between scenes, he speaks with a scientist via Webcam about the potential challenges—technical and psychological—of a Martian voyage. Throughout, Scheib strikes a tone of semi-academic seriousness laced with deadpan, surrealistic humor. Some of the pulp-inspired elements (time travel, a lesbian affair) are too silly for their own good, but the over-all effect is one of happy disorientation. (P.S. 122, at 150 First Ave., at 9th St. 212-352-3101. Through April 27.) - Michael Schulman

http://www.newyorker.com/arts/events/theatre/2008/04/28/080428goth_GOAT_theatre?currentPage=2 THEATER I Want to Go to Mars

By MELENA RYZIK Thursday, April 24, 2008

Attention sci-fi geeks, multimedia freaks and cutting-edge theater lovers: “Untitled Mars (this title may change),” ru nning through Sunday at PS 122, may be your kind of show. Created by Jay Scheib with help from his M.I.T. colleagues and the Mars Society, it’s set on a space station on the red planet. With video projections, Skype chats with astronomers and text borrowed from Philip K. Dick, it’s meant to bridge “the hard science of how we get to Mars and the science fiction about what happens when we get there.” The singular performer Mike Daisey loved it so much that he agreed to appear tonight as a Mars expert (yep, he’s a nerd).

http://www.nytimes.com/indexes/2008/04/24/urbaneye/index.html Kultúra.hu - Mars cím nélkül a Nemzetiben http://kultura.hu/main.php?folderID=952&ctag=articlelist&iid...

KULTÚRA.HU

Kulturális portál » Színház

Mars cím nélkül a Nemzetiben

2008. november 28. Mars cím nélkül címmel magyar-amerikai színházi produkció premierjét tartották áprilisban New York egyik legismertebb független színházában, a dél-manhattani PS122-ben. A leendő Mars-utazást szimuláló darab november 28-29-én a Nemzeti Színházban látható.

Tudomány kontra fikció - ez a témája az amerikai- magyar koprodukcióban készült előadásnak, melynek gerincét egyfelől Philip K. Dick Időugrás a Marson című 1964-es, az elképzelt Marson játszódó regénye adja, másfelől az MIT fizikus és kutató hallgatóival és professzoraival, illetve magyar kollégáikkal készült - harminc órányi Untitled Mars anyagnál gazdagabb - interjúk.

Az előadásban élő kapcsolásban jelentkezik az MIT Mars-kutató csoportjából Zarah Kahn és Phillip Cunio. A Mars cím nélkül a szigorú tudomány és az előadást részben ihlető science fiction keveréke egy olyan témáról, amely egyre inkább lázba hozza a világ polgárait. A homo sapiens egyik legsajátabb jellemzője a nem lankadó kíváncsiság, amiből a Mars feltérképezésének szándéka is táplálkozik és ez mozgatja az alapvetően magyar-amerikai, ám négy másik ország művészeit is integráló produkciót.

Az elmúlt öt évben az egyik legsikeresebb fiatal amerikai rendező, Jay Scheib munkáiban transzdiszciplináris műfajokra összpontosított. A Merényi Anna dramaturg közvetítésével létrejött magyarországi munkái során a Pont Műhellyel, illetve a Krétakör Színházzal két élő film-színházat állított színpadra.

A Mars cím nélkül magyar (Gryllus Dorka, Keszég László, Vajna Balázs) és amerikai (Natalie

1 of 2 12/16/08 5:50 PM Kultúra.hu - Mars cím nélkül a Nemzetiben http://kultura.hu/main.php?folderID=952&ctag=articlelist&iid...

Thomas, Tanya Selvaratnam, Caleb Hammond, April Sweeney, Laine Rettmer) színházművészek és intézmények közötti földrajzi határokat és műfajokat feszegető koprodukció, melynek során Jay Scheib és Merényi Anna, illetve a Pont Műhely két budapesti produkció után először készített előadást az Egyesült Államokban. Eredeti helyszínén, a rangos New York-i Performance Space 122-ban három hétig volt műsoron az Untitled Mars.

Jay Scheib összművészeti színházában különlegesen fontos szerepet játszanak európai tapasztalatai, ahogyan amerikai gyökerei is. A fiatal rendező két európai színművészeti egyetem állandó vendégoktatója (a legendás salzburgi Mozarteum és a norvég Fredrikstadi, többek között Robert Wilson és Anna Viebrock nevével fémjelzett Színművészeti Főiskola), továbbá az MIT docense. Évente többször rendez európai színházakban, köztük a berlini Volksbühnén, a Saarbrückeni Staatstheaterben, de Belgrádban és Bolognában éppúgy visszatérő vendég, mint New Yorkban és Bostonban.

A magyar színházi hagyományok tükrében még mindig szinte forradalminak ható színpadi nyelvezete és látványvilága, a térre való különös érzékenysége, a magyar abszurd hagyományaival ötvözve mindig egyedi és izgalmas eredményt hozott. A közönség és a kritikusok egyaránt nagyra tartják munkáit.

A Mars cím nélkül a Nemzeti Gobbi Hilda Színpadán látható péntek és szombat este. KÖZLEMÉNY A szervezőség cikkünk megjelenése óta tájékoztatta szerkesztőségünket, miszerint a szombat délután három órára meghirdetett előadás elmarad, a péntek és szombat este hét órás előadásokat azonban változatlanul megtartják. Korábban: November a Nemzetiben

Fotó: jayscheib.com

A kultúra.hu tartalmának írásbeli engedély nélküli újraközlése bármely portálon, internetes fórumon, blogon, illetve intézményi és privát honlapon szigorúan tilos, mert törvénybe ütközik, s így azonnali és automatikus jogi következményekkel jár. Kizárólag hivatkozás elhelyezésekor használható fel a szöveg, de akkor is csak a bevezető rész (lead) végéig, illusztráció nélkül.

2 of 2 12/16/08 5:50 PM Superfluities Redux by George Hunka, Artistic director, theatre minima Sunday, 12 October 2008 Maintaining the Simulation: Untitled Mars (This Title May Change) Untitled Mars (This Title May Change). Conceived and directed by Jay Scheib. Scenic design by Peter Ksander. Lighting design by Miranda Hardy. Costume design by Oana Botez-Ban. Sound design by Catherine McCurry. Video design by Balász Vajna and Miklós Buk. Dramaturg: Anna Lengyel. Text assembly by Jay Scheib. A co-production with Pont Muhley, Budapest. With Karl Allen, Dorka Gryllus, Caleb Hammond, László Keszég, Catherine McCurry, Tanya Selvaratnam, April Sweeney, Natalie Thomas and Balázs Vajna (with other on-camera appearances). Running time: 95 minutes, no intermission. At Performance Space 122. Reviewed at the 26 April evening performance. Runs 8-27 April 2008. Jay Scheib's sci-fact-influenced show says more about life on this planet today than about life on any other planet in the future

Two things about the name of Jay Scheib's new show, which closes today at PS122. First, despite its high-tech sci-fi trappings, Untitled Mars takes place entirely, from beginning to end, in modern-day Utah, home of Mormonism and wide-open deserts; there's not a rocketship, a robot or an alien – not a real one, anyway – in sight. Second, the word "title" isn't applicable only to the work of art, but to real estate – specifically, the title to the land that surrounds the Mars Desert Research Lab (and by extension Mars itself), a title which Arnie, one of Scheib's trademark crude rapacious businessmen, wants in his own possession. Scheib's trick here is to layer technology, design and futuristic vision upon a sardonic satirical comment about the superficial, affectless and materialist surface of 21st-century American life. It's a neat trick, and Scheib pulls it off.

He tried to do so in This Place Is a Desert earlier this season at Mark Russell's Under the Radar festival at the Public, but here he skirts the risk of self-indulgence that he couldn't entirely avoid in the earlier show. Perhaps it's the unique presence of the director himself in Untitled Mars that's the saving comic grace; he plays "Jay Scheib," a mordantly skeptical theatre director doing research for the show we're currently watching about a future manned mission to Mars. This research takes the form of a teleconferenced conversation between Scheib and a genial woman with the Mars Desert Research Lab. (The choppy, elliptical nature of this Internet conversation using Skype also begs the question: If this is the fragmented, jerky communication we have between Utah and New York, what can we expect of the conversation between Mars and Earth, let alone between two human beings alone in the same room?) One of the options for this mission is, chillingly, a one-way ticket to the red planet itself for a group of human colonists, who, stranded on the planet, would then be charged with constructing and populating a new outpost for the human race. It's this option that kicks off Scheib's fictionalised vision of the very real experiments and simulations now going on in Utah.

Assuming the worst possible outcome, Untitled Mars becomes a wild, grueling sex farce (and Scheib's sexual imagination runs free, given the admitted lack of research as to sexual relationships and even the possibility of childbirth in such a colony). Researcher Mannie (Natalie Thomas in a flowing red dress, one of the multidimensionally sexy and sexless costumes http://www.georgehunka.com/blog/index.cgi/Notices?_start=7 1 designed by the ever-impressive Oana Botez-Ban) has already gone round the bend, induced into acute situational schizophrenia by the emotionless scientific perspective that the research has necessitated; it's up to Jackie (Tanya Selvaratnam), another researcher with her own doubts and questions about her sexuality, to find a cure for her and save the mission itself. It doesn't help that the other two women on the mission are the hard-edged but seductive Anne (April Sweeney), who has her eyes set on Jackie's cynical husband Sylvere (László Keszég); bi-sexual test pilot Doreen (Dorka Gryllus) wouldn't mind a night or two with Jackie, or even Mannie, herself. The women are all in various stages of repression and hysteria, while Arnie (Caleb Hammond) subsumes his own sexuality in alcohol and greed; HabCom (Karl Allen) oversees the experiment as a whole with a poker-face, reflecting the cold scientific perspective that sees irrationality as a problem to be solved instead of a human trait to be explored.

It doesn't take long to see that this landscape isn't Mars of the late 21st-century, but America of 2008. Peter Ksander's set is self-consciously fake – a large glass window turns out to be a large piece of clear Saran Wrap, and except for the highly evolved media technology that the show presents, there's a decidedly artificial, theatrical feel to the control center at stage right, reflecting the rather dim, unimaginative applied-science technocratic mind. (When an encounter with an alien is supposed to be simulated, a mission member daubs some green make-up on his face and lashes a big, silly green rubber tail around his waist.) And indeed, while we have large televisions bearing down at us from Times Square, enough people have been killed on construction sites in New York in the last year to demonstrate that the buildings holding up those television screens might be cheap and shoddy themselves.

This all looks to dissolve in disastrous chaos, but Scheib can't resist offering two endings. In the first, the simulation looks to spin wildly out of control and end in dismal, painful failure. Through the self-evidently silly device of time travel (and the only real representative trope of the genre of science fiction that informs the production), Scheib offers a second, more optimistic close to the fable. In this, the rapacious businessman gets his comeuppance through the agency of a decidedly non-futuristic bow-and-arrow, and the show closes on a touching, moving and hopeful attempt at marital reconciliation.

Scheib is an amazingly prolific director – this is his third New York show in the past few years, and at the same time he's been assiduously working in Europe as well – but as his career goes on he is demonstrating the tightening focus of his vision. He is emotionally drawn to large, empty spaces (in his stagings of both Women Dreamt Horses and This Place is a Desert) which the human body desires to fill with expressions of its own violent reaches for pleasure and possession; the very American schizophrenia that lurches between utopia, possession, freedom and environmental destruction; the tenuousness of the mediated technological vision in a physically crumbling world; and, finally, the urge to the repression of human irrationality, an irrationality that can erupt in the experience of ecstasy. He is also drawn to the big mess that these tormented human beings can create both in Utah and elsewhere (not to mention the stages on which he works). Though still possessed of a bleak and tragic perspective, Untitled Mars (This Title May Change) locates a comic aspect of his vision that may provide a new territory for his own explorations.

Untitled Mars is the first installment of Simulated Cities/Simulated Systems; following this vision of Mars on Earth, Scheib will put Earth on Mars and, most intriguingly, Earth on Earth. I get the sneaking suspicion, though, that Scheib will have had Earth on Earth – and, especially, people on Earth – foremost on his mind through the entire trilogy. More than alien life on other planets, Scheib finds the alien (because unexplored and unexpected) life in ourselves.

http://www.georgehunka.com/blog/index.cgi/Notices?_start=7 2 Untitled Mars (This Title May Change) http://www.nytheatre.com/nytheatre/showpage.php?t=unti6475

nyc theatre info, Untitled Mars (This Title May listings, and reviews Change) NOW PLAYING: Tonight nytheatre.com review OPENED Tomorrow Richard Hinojosa · April 15, 2008 April 13, 2008 Plays CLOSED Musicals If we perfected the technology to colonize April 26, 2008 For Kids & Families habitable planets, would we try to rid our Late Night new society of all its imperfections or would CONCEIVED & Cabaret/Comedy all the greed, hubris, and malevolence be DIRECTED BY New This Week transported to the colony? Or, on the other Jay Scheib By Neighborhood hand, would we discover something new in Physical Theatre ourselves? Untitled Mars offers a simulation of such a colony and yet, at times, it seems so real. The show's creator, Jay Scheib, crashes MORE LISTINGS: simulation and reality into each other while weaving together hard Coming Attractions science and fiction. The combination makes for an extraordinary Festival Calendar experience. One Night Only Venue Listings When you walk into the theatre, the simulation is already in progress. There are half-a-dozen cameras and several microphones set up. Three HELP ME CHOOSE A SHOW: large screens line the back wall, showing us the action on the cameras. Reviewers' Picks You see a lot of audio/video equipment and laptops and cables. I thought Ticket Discounts I was in for a very technical evening; but there is more story to the Stars on Stage production than I expected. Trip Planner nytheatre Reviews The simulation crew is made up of the roles you may imagine on a Mars mission: the astronaut, the scientist, the psychiatrist, and the spouse. EXPLORE NYTHEATRE: Subscribe to our They call one crew member an "anomalous" crew member. She is Newsletter suffering from schizophrenia. It would seem that almost all of them have How to Buy Tickets this problem but they "manage" it to various degrees. They have affairs Interviews and sordid pasts with each other. There is a Martian real estate scam nytheatre FactFile going down and one of them tries to dip his fingers into it, driving him to People of the Year time travel and murder. The schizoid girl, who communicates strictly CDs and Books through movement, is the key somehow—we just don't know to what. nytheatre buzz Mixed in with all this fiction, there is real science from a real crew Links member of a Mars simulation in Utah, and there are clips of scientists

BLOGS: talking about the logistics of a mission to colonize Mars. The crew even Martin Denton tries to follow scientific protocols but the real science is underplayed. The (nytheatre i) fiction really drives the show. The characters are all quite interesting and Plays and funny. The story and the structure of it is odd but not at all hard to Playwrights follow. It is a bit jarring to have reality bent, broken, and mashed together with fiction. One minute you're watching actors on stage, the REVIEW ARCHIVES: next a scientist spouting technical jargon and the next the actors are Current Season playing to you through the camera. But it was this controlled chaos that I

1 of 2 7/21/09 10:25 AM Untitled Mars (This Title May Change) http://www.nytheatre.com/nytheatre/showpage.php?t=unti6475

Previous Seasons really enjoyed.

OTHER MEDIA: This show grabbed me and held from beginning to end. I could not look RSS Feed away. There is so much to look at, and between all the screens and Podcasts activity I found myself on the edge of my seat most of the time. The Mobile execution of all the switching among cameras and video and all the sound and light cues is flawless. The production quality is great. Scheib's ABOUT THIS SITE: direction is tight and his vision complex and clear. His script contains About Us some insightful thoughts on the nature of human endeavors such as Site Map exploration and colonization. There are a couple of brooding poetic Reviewers/Staff monologues and some funny exchanges, though sometimes it is a bit List Your Show hard to understand if it's supposed to be real or a simulation. Support Us The cast is quite charming. Caleb Hammond gets some good laughs playing the greedy and obnoxious Arnie. Dorka Gryllus is fantastic as the beautiful and mysterious Doreen. Laszlo Keszeg plays very naturally the jaded and tired Sylvere, and Tanya Selvaratnam does a great job as his wife Jackie, the dry and calculating mechanic. April Sweeney is extremely alluring as the psychiatrist with a very effective solution to isolation. And Natalie Thomas is amazing and completely non-stop as Mannie the schizoid girl. Her energy hums throughout the entire performance.

Untitled Mars is a unique experience. I left the show still feeling captivated by what I'd just seen. Sometimes multimedia performances become too convoluted for their own good, but not this one. It's the first part of a trilogy of simulated cities and I for one plan on seeing the other two.

Printer-friendly version of this page

Google Search Search nytheatre.com Search the web

Home Contact Us Privacy/Terms of Use mobile.nytheatre.com shop.nyte.org

2 of 2 7/21/09 10:25 AM

Jack Terricloth, center, and his band, World/Inferno Friendship Society. Addicted to Peter Lorre (That Voice, Those Eyes)

By BEN SISARIO Published: January 7, 2009

Jack Terricloth was practicing his Peter Lorre impression. Sitting at a darkened video booth one recent afternoon at the Paley Center for Media (the former Museum of Television and Radio) in Midtown, he watched a series of obscure television appearances by Lorre from the 1950s and ’60s, carefully observing every whine and snivel.

“Oh, yesss,” he muttered in a mousy Germanic accent, hunching over and twiddling his fingers anxiously. “I am hee-dee-ous!”

Lorre’s craven characters in films like “M” and “Casablanca” have been fodder for comedians for decades, but Jack Terricloth’s aims are more ambitious. As leader of the World/Inferno Friendship Society, a Brooklyn band that mixes Weimar-style cabaret and roisterous ska-punk, he is the driving force behind “Addicted to Bad Ideas: Peter Lorre’s 20th Century,” a self-described punk songspiel that is part of the Public Theater’s Under the Radar festival, including a performance at Webster Hall in the East Village on Friday.

Tall and slim, fond both of dandyish dark suits and heavy, mosh-pit-ready boots, Jack Terricloth looks nothing like the doughy and goggle-eyed Lorre. And despite how much he enjoys imitating Lorre’s voice — he says he sometimes falls asleep listening to recordings of Lorre on the radio — his performance in “Addicted to Bad Ideas” is less impersonation than sympathetic interpretation.

“I find Peter Lorre a strangely charismatic, extremely creepy person, which I think most punk rockers can identify with,” said Jack Terricloth, 38, who was born Peter Ventantonio and grew up in Bridgewater, N.J. “It’s the lure of the other. He’s the underdog, the outsider.”

Emphasizing that outsider status, the show portrays Lorre as a misunderstood antihero whose life reflected broad political and social tumult. Born in 1904 in what is now Slovakia, Lorre, who was Jewish, had a promising early career in Germany working with Bertolt Brecht and Fritz Lang, but fled Nazi Germany for London and eventually Hollywood, where he was unable to escape typecasting as a sinister, usually foreign, villain. By the time of those 1950s television gigs he often seemed a caricature of himself. He died in 1964. “Lorre is an excellent way to examine the 20th century historically,” Jack Terricloth said, “and the concerns and problems of every artist who works in the culture wars.”

Directed by Jay Scheib, “Addicted to Bad Ideas: Peter Lorre’s 20th Century” is based on the band’s 2007 album of the same title, on Chunksaah Records. The music veers from piano- and guitar-driven rock to tense chamber arrangements, and the lyrics draw from Lorre’s films and Stephen D. Youngkin’s 2005 biography, “The Lost One: A Life of Peter Lorre.” (“I don’t act, I just make faces,” goes one song.) But Mr. Scheib, a theater professor at M.I.T. whose multimedia work “This Place Is a Desert” was in Under the Radar two years ago, said the show was not strictly biographical. “It ended up being more about how the band’s live show is influenced by Lorre’s life and times than any kind of a biopic,” he said.

World/Inferno Friendship Society exists almost completely outside the mainstream but has a following that many bands would envy, with devoted fans (they call themselves Infernites) communicating through an active forum on the band’s Web site (worldinferno.com). “Addicted to Bad Ideas” has quickly raised the group’s profile, however, adding highbrow arts institutions to its usually unglamorous tour itinerary of bars and clubs. In the fall the show opened the Peak Performances series at Montclair State University in New Jersey, and in May it will have a short run at the Spoleto Festival U.S.A. in Charleston, S.C.

If the idea of a raucous rock band performing a semiclassical song cycle in a proscenium theater sounds somewhat incongruous, that is exactly the kind of challenge that World/Inferno Friendship Society has been cultivating for more than a decade. The group’s eight current players — membership has been somewhat fluid — play saxophones and accordion in addition to guitar and drums, and dress in suits and gowns. Jack Terricloth sings in a smarmy slur and maintains a constant devilish smirk.

“We are a punk-rock band, and we play punk-rock shows, but our music couldn’t be more different,” he said. “Kids see us and think: ‘Guys in suits and makeup at a hardcore show? Come on.’ But we always have them by the third song, and then we’re something they have to accept about the punk rock scene and about the world. We’ve now entered into the great dialogue that is our culture, which is what any artist should do. I was going to say ‘any good artist,’ but any bad artist too.”

At Montclair State culture clash was part of the idea. The touring contract for “Addicted to Bad Ideas” stipulates that a presenter must make room for a mosh pit, and when fans began tossing themselves around it on the first night, Jedediah Wheeler, the executive director of the series, was at first horrified. “I thought, ‘Oh my God, this is dangerous,’ ” he said. “But the more I watched, the more I realized that they had tremendous physical respect for each other. It became a dance. I could not believe how beautiful it was.”

The band first performed “Addicted to Bad Ideas” as a cycle at the Spiegeltent in Lower Manhattan in 2006, encouraged by Thomas Kriegsmann, who booked the summer music series there and is now the producer of the show. Montclair State gave Mr. Scheib and the band money and space to develop the show, which was first performed at the Live Arts Festival in Philadelphia in 2007.

In conversation Jack Terricloth comes across as a stubborn idealist and a wry cynic. He dropped out of high school to live the itinerant punk life, playing in the band Sticks and Stones before founding the World/Inferno Friendship Society, whose name he will only explain in riddles that he says may not be true. He wrote a chapbook novella, “Bakshish,” and said that although he had no formal experience in acting, “just acting out,” the band could well have ended up a theater troupe. Its first album, “The True Story of the Bridgewater Astral League” (1997), was in the style of a musical.

“There was a point where we could have gone really theater or gone really punk rock,” he said. “We just started touring all the time, and theater seems kind of fey, so we put the theater world aside for a good number of years.” Now it is becoming a greater part of the band’s repertory, and he said there was more theatrical work to come. The band’s next project, he said, is a punk version of “A Prairie Home Companion.” http://www.forbes.com/2009/01/12/lorre-scheib-webster-oped-cx_mk_0113kaylan.html

Hubble-Bubble The Whole Point Of Peter Lorre Melik Kaylan, 01.13.09, 12:01 AM EST

Culture, entertainment, tragedy, fun.

By fits and starts I have come to realize that Iran is inexorably filling the vacuum of the defunct Ottoman Empire in the Middle East. It's one of those satisfying notions that, once conceived, seems utterly obvious. I promised my saintly editor that I would unfold the hypothesis this week. And then something rather unexpected derailed my plans. I went to a live performance/concert at downtown New York's Webster Hall.

Readers who are remotely familiar with my intellectual preoccupations through the years know that I like to bang on about how, in the postmodern universe, entertainment and consumption are allowed to masquerade as culture. I have nothing against each separately, only against their being held up to us, by both highbrows and populists alike, as indistinguishable. Then along comes a show like "Addicted To Bad Ideas--Peter Lorre's 20th Century," and I'm forced to admit that sometimes, very rarely, the categories do blend gloriously to produce something greater than the sum of their parts.

Let me say two things upfront: I've never liked Peter Lorre, and a friend of mine directed the show. To take the last point first, one expends so much ingenuity and hyperbole on insincere praise of work by friends over the years that, when the real thing comes along, you realize that you can find no terminology of praise in your toolbox untarnished by previous misuse. You want to say, No, no I mean it, this is not mere flattery, but you realize you have even said that before all too falsely.

Jay Scheib directed the show. He's an improbably decent and handsome 30-something prodigy from Iowa. He teaches theater at MIT in between trips to Austria to do the same at the grand old Mozartheum music academy. He directs operas in Europe and theater stateside. Nevertheless, I was gearing up to deploy all the tired flim-flam of flattery for yet another ho-hum product of very hard work by a friend. Not least because Jay Scheib is also the husband of an even older friend, the lovely and unstoppable Harvard-educated Sri Lankan theater performer, much beloved by venues like BAM and the Knitting Factory, Tanya Selvaratnam.

Peter Lorre. I've never understood why Americans, or some persistent strain of pop-culture tastemakers, have constantly pushed Peter Lorre to the fore as someone to remember or revere. He's a sniveling, sniffling, congenitally ignoble figure with a whingeing voice who gets typecast as just that in all his major roles from Casablanca to The Maltese Falcon. He is, at times, a petty thief, a child molester and a black marketer, but always a deeply untrustworthy, smear-featured minor villain of indeterminate Central European origin. He died in Hollywood in the 1960s, alone, in debt, addicted to morphine and largely unmourned. What's to like?

The live show, with music composed and performed by the seven-piece band World/Inferno Friendship Society, was a wholly unexpected thing, a phenomenon. How to describe it? Imagine a cross between the Rocky Horror Picture Show, Cabaret, the Moth, an episode of Biography and a bruising 1979 gig by The Clash. You can't? Well, I couldn't either until I saw it unfold. I mean, where else in rock music have you ever

1 seen an entire performance or album devoted to history? Or tuxedos and two saxophonists on stage in front of a crowd of shirtless hooligans headbanging in the mosh pit? Or at the back of the auditorium a large bar with middle-aged theater folk boozing happily away while watching the shenanigans?

The one-night performance we attended at Webster Hall began with a frustrating wait, with the audience separated from the band by a large paper scrim that acted as a translucent curtain. The paper curtain slowly turned into a graffiti canvas for the hidden performers as they spray-painted unintelligible scribbles on it. Then suddenly a mad, slender, Mephistophelean figure in black-tie and gelled receding hairline crashed through the paper curtain roaring out the first number.

The lead singer, Jack Terricloth, when he wasn't banging out hard-driving punk-smash numbers, sang with a perfect dreamy-crooner tenor to waltzy melodies. They evoked the lost lifetimes, forgotten places and morphine-smudged principles of a certain era. Terricloth also doubled as the lead actor in the role of Lorre in a kind of multidimensional posture. He was at once the protagonist, the ironic elegizer of his life, the emcee for the bygone century and for the night.

The evening really took off when I moved from the main floor to the balcony. I got a glimpse of the barreling mosh pit below, the bodies being carried aloft in the usual way, elbows and heads smashing, catastrophe pending every instant. I remember such scenes from my youth in punk-era Britain. It seemed perfectly necessary and routine at the time. But in the context of cabaret-theater these many decades later, it seemed shocking. Up above the stage, a multi-screen display showed scenes from Lorre's movies, a solitary smoking figure drifting along in old black-and-white filmstock, now turned sepia, walking on a nameless war- torn country road somewhere in wintry Europe.

As it became clear that the audience knew all the numbers by heart, my sense of wonder deepened. With the music biz fading, how does a band even develop a following these days--via Facebook?--let alone one so devoted that they sang out the title song louder than the band--a kind of mordant, self-hating morphine addict's anthem, "Because I can/'Cause no one can stop me/'Cause it makes up for things I've lost/'Cause I'm addicted to bad ideas/And all the beauty in this world." Meanwhile, on stage, scenes from a life unfolded. Lorre's bullying patron, the great director Fritz Lang (played by the pianist) is interviewed by Goebbels (played by the drummer). The encounter happened in real life. Goebbels offered Lang a position in the Nazi propaganda mill. Lang refused and fled abroad.

Then one sees photos of Lorre in the absurd Californian paradise of later years, his little daughter sitting on his suntanned shoulders, life's a consumer beach--how on earth could he have explained the inscape of such an odyssey to anyone? One realized that Lorre lived a classic 20th century arc of mute despair, before immigrants found a voice, at a time when the world's center of gravity shifted from east to west, from ancient hatreds to Polaroid smiles, from crushing history to weightless celluloid. He was the most unlikely person to embody such a grand narrative, and that, I realized, is the whole point of Peter Lorre. History randomly singled him out, as it did so many others. He spent his life trying to be unworthy of it.

The show on the other hand is worthy of all that and much else besides. It turns out to be a profound, thrilling ride through the last century's tragicomic confluence of cultural genres. Here, it matters that culture and entertainment, tragedy and fun, are confused. That's the whole point.

Melik Kaylan, a writer based in New York, writes a weekly column for Forbes.com. His story "Georgia In The Time of Misha" is featured in The Best American Travel Writing 2008.

Addicted to “Addicted to Bad Ideas,” a Good Idea Posted 1/5/2009 3:26:00 PM by Tyler Gray, photo by Rose Gallagher

A couple of months ago, Blender boarded a slightly stank Port Authority bus to New Jersey on the promise of a rock opera of sorts based on the life of actor Peter Lorre called “Addicted to Bad Ideas.” It’s the brainchild of Boston/New York director Jay Scheib and band World/Inferno Friendship Society, both of whom we’re nuts about. Then again, we’re suckers for cabaret punk.

The hour or so ride - during which the chatter was almost as robust as the cough billowing from the gentleman behind us - was in stark contrast to the meticulously curated show. The location was a state-of-the-art theater at Montclair University on a street called Normal Avenue. The lighting on stage was stark and white. A glittery chandelier dangled overhead. The band’s outfits were straight out of a 1950s debutante ball (the music was not - more like Rocket from the Crypt or even Misfits with horns).

Singer Jack Terricloth was stylishly malnourished, slicked back and buttoned down in a crisp tux, and in between-song monologues and improvisational responses to hecklers, he pulled off Lorre’s weirdo nasal affectation (the Hungarian actor is famous for his roles in M and the lead in the Mr. Moto detective series). Speaking of the audience, the ones up front, anyway, they were the unofficial cast members in the production. They dressed smart-casual like the older onlookers seated in the back of the theater but moshed and crowd surfed (remember that?) when the music started (see photo, above). The theater had removed a few front rows of chairs and booked bulky campus cops to keep reins on the controlled anarchy. Mirrors assured it was all visible from the Geritol section. The band members are also shot by a series of video cameras and projected on giant screens above the stage (that’s Scheib’s signature touch).

In fact, the only thing bad I’d say about the night was that it ended with a 30-minute wait for a ride back to Manhattan at a dark, unmarked bus stop just past a cemetery in a chillingly silent suburban Jersey neighborhood. NYC residents will have it much easier Friday when Scheib and W/IFS take “Addicted to Bad Ideas” the Webster Hall for a one-off performance. We’re going and can only imagine how Scheib’s video and mirrors and the band and their fans’ antics will play in a proper concert hall. You should go. POST AND COURIER, CHARLESTON, SC

Band's show a thrill ride BY ADAM PARKER The Post and Courier Thursday, May 28, 2009

It really wasn't that strange. Go to the Knitting Factory in New York City most nights and you'll find odder stuff than World/Inferno Friendship Society.

The band's "Addicted to Bad ideas: Peter Lorre's 20th Century" was a terrific, loud, rock- and-roll romp replete with a charismatic rendering of the famous German-born actor by frontman Jack Terricloth.

Based in Brooklyn, the band mostly plays a quasi-conceptual rock that relies on big arrangements, lots of bouncing around on stage and the intriguing presence of Terricloth. It's got groupies (a few attended Wednesday night's gig). It's got merchandise. It's cool to know about World/Inferno.

But the band is more than a la mode. It's hip, a little retro, clever. Though the configuration can change, it's offering up drums, bass guitar, keyboards, guitar, three saxophones and Terricloth's lead vocals at the Emmett Robinson Theatre.

More cabaret than punk, and vaguely reminiscent of the band Oingo Boingo, the irreverent show took the audience through Lorre's life. The show began with shadows behind a scrim and ended with a waltz called "Heart Attack '69." As Terricloth sang "What a wonderful, wonderful world," drummer Brian Viglione grabbed a fan from the miniscule mosh pit and began dancing with him up the aisle steps.

The "narrative" — if we can call it that — consisted of odd monologues and skits played out self-consciously between songs.

Terricloth, dressed in a tux, eyeliner emphasizing sarcastic and occasionally demonic glances, mesmerized those relaxed enough to go with the flow. (Not everyone liked the show.)

It was a courageous and inspired addition to the Spoleto menu by producer (and avid fan) Nunally Kersh, for World/Inferno Friendship Society certainly inspires — joy, fascination and cheers by admirers; grimaces or blank stares by those unprepared for the big, wild ride.

Let's put it this way: Everyone knows Coney Island's Cyclone roller coaster is a rickety thrill. Those made uncomfortable by fast drops and sharp turns probably should avoid it.

Obscene Jester: loudly, loudly, catchee lorre Page 1 of 2

Obscene Jester the performance art blog

2008.09.21 loudly, loudly, catchee lorre

I’ve been a huge fan of Stick and Stones, and, by extension, World / Inferno Friendship Society for years, so I was naturally thrilled and confused that they would stage their new concept album, Addicted to Bad Ideas, as a part of their residence at Montclair State’s Peak Performances series. W/IFS is known for their all-too rare true punk following (with their own Baroque, carnivalesque twists), proven by a conversation I overheard before the performance: “Dude, it’s a really nice theatre; there’s no shit to break in there!”

Oh man, was I excited to see what happened.

The result was one of the more bizarre clashes in what we academics like to call “audience reception theory” that I’ve come across. The new album is a tribute to the volatile life of Peter Lorre, the actor and director who has, since the end of his career, has become more a parody of himself than a credit to his stellar turns in Lang’s M, Casablanca, and as the first Bond villain. It’s no surprise that Lorre is the subject for W/IFS: their album Just the Best Party (2002) included a track titled “Peter Lorre,” and the disturbing, absurd grotesque has been a lure for most hardcore punk, from the Stooges to the Cramps to the Circle Jerks, even to more recent bands like the Offspring and Green Day in their heydays. Lorre, a character actor who was always resentful of his typecast persona (“I don’t want to go down in history as a monster,” he once rued). Sadly, the end of his career with the likes of Vincent Prince, Bela Lugosi, and Boris Karloff overshadowed his work with Brecht, Lang, psychodrama father Jacob Moreno, and Hitchcock. The “negative superman” becomes a beautiful object of inquiry for Jack Terricloth and company.

Terricloth, like many punk frontmen, certainly belongs to the Weimar era, with his slicked back hair and Spandau Ballet digs, he has the look of a lanky, more defined Lorre, and plays the part well in “Bad Ideas.” Between songs, Terricloth performs a number of “Mystery in the Air” radio plays in his best huffing, Hungarian-affected voice.

And the piece is successful in two very conflicted, distinct forums: the first is what most were there to see and feel: the music and the mosh pit. And kudos to the people at the Kasser Theatre for removing the first few rows of seats to allow this. If it had remained a stuffy, “this is theatre, people!” aesthetic, the natives would have been restless. And the kids were alright: rushing each other, stage

http://obscenejester.typepad.com/home/2008/09/loudly-loudly-c.html 9/22/2008 Obscene Jester: loudly, loudly, catchee lorre Page 2 of 2

diving, and general young but stupid horse play. Never have I been to a performance in which security detail waits in the aisles, just in case. Awesome. And they quickly establish it as a punk force to be reckoned with. As a old-time waltz plays in the background, we begin to see band members backlit behind the scrim, twirling and mingling, which gives way to grafitti-ing words like "Riot," "Murder," "Steal," and "Make Out." Are these calls to the kids, though, or themes in Lorre's life? Either way, the band quickly tears through and comes out swinging with the opening, "With a Good Criminal Heart."

The other success is in the production concept. The band and director Jay Scheib pull off a phenomenal job of staging the album, towing the line between the reverence to the music, and well placed additions of fantasies, radio plays, and video installation. (My particular favorite is Lorre’s imagined encounter between Lang and Nazi Minister of Propoganda Josef Goebbels.) Scheib’s video work mixes live feeds of the band with film of Lorre and music video-esque footage of the band, continuing the subtle supplement to larger project.

But where do these two aesthetics intersect? Far be it from me to take the snobbish route, shake my fists, and yell “You damn kids don’t appreciate the fine performance work at hand!” But when I hear the fifteen year-old with horrible B.O. in front of me before the performance, commenting on the projection of M, “What the hell is this? This is the gayest movie I’ve ever seen! It’s in black and white and backwards!” I have to cringe a bit. When the interludes were too quiet, many ran to the bathroom or outside for a smoke.

But, above all, the band enjoyed the aesthetic battle. Of course. After Terricloth is asked to put away the bottle of wine which he constantly returns to for a big swig or two, he mocks the university for not allowing the band to smoke or drink anywhere: it’s a “Bad Idea.” As the security rushes to push potential stage divers off the stage, Terricloth grins widely and gestures to let it happen. Ultimately, the question is “Who cares?” Neither aesthetic threatens the other. Who knows?: maybe that smelly kid will go home and rent M in all its glorious shades of gray.

Posted by Tweed on 2008.09.21 at 04:04 PM | Permalink

Comments

http://obscenejester.typepad.com/home/2008/09/loudly-loudly-c.html 9/22/2008

Under the Radar Festival 2008 Reviews http://www.nytheatre.com/nytheatre/utr_rev2008.php?0=S&1=254

2008 Under the Radar Festival Reviews

This Place Is A Desert reviewed by Saviana Stanescu Jan 11, 2008

The Under the Radar Festival manages to create a special atmosphere at The Public Theatre, a buzz that's shared by theatre-goers and industry people, all excited to see what's "new and hot" in the contemporary performance arena.

One of the must-see shows on the "menu," This Place Is A Desert is a fascinating new piece conceived and directed by Jay Scheib (in collaboration with media designer Leah Gelpe), and produced by Shoshana Polanco, which proves once again that Scheib is one of the creators of a new theatre d'auteur. His shows have a distinctive stylistic mark, an aesthetic that combines a conceptual exploration with a high-tech multimedia universe that allows the procession to resume.

Inspired by the works of the Italian filmmaker Antonioni—who explored a similar world of emotional alienation in his films L'Avventura (1960), La Notte (1961), and L'Eclisse (1962), creating an exciting non-narrative, psychological cinema that made him famous—Scheib is similarly obsessed with a modern world of loneliness and despair, where people cling onto each other in violent sexual encounters in the hope of finding themselves in the process. Of course it never happens and a frustration leads to a new frustration, and a depression to a new one. Antonioni's somewhat political concern of examining the barren eroticism of the bourgeoisie and implicitly criticizing its lack of meaningful values, becomes for Scheib a stylized reality of random love affairs and betrayals in an alienated society where people are desperate to connect, masochistically throwing themselves into identity crises solved temporarily through sexual passion.

The ensemble of performers is diverse and exceptional, fully committed to the director's vision. Extremely powerful actresses such as April Sweeney and Sarita Choudhury keep the audience with their eyes glued to their movement, be it live or on screen. The beautiful costumes created by Oana Botez-Ban contribute largely to the sensuality that the performers share, bringing a palpable sense of carnality on stage.

Scheib's aesthetic relies on the various angles through which we can see the scenes, always a fragmented reality that never reveals itself fully. We can see faces in mirrors, bodies moving on the screen,

1 of 2 7/21/09 10:27 AM Under the Radar Festival 2008 Reviews http://www.nytheatre.com/nytheatre/utr_rev2008.php?0=S&1=254

entangled arms and legs, sneaky eyes sliding in a corner of an image, a few rooms where people interact more or less violently, always with some erotic anticipation or sexual desire that burns hearts and destroys relationships. Still—in an alienated universe where people are islands, a burning heart is a sure sign that one is still alive, a violent sexual encounter is a proof that one exists.

And Jay Scheib and his ensemble are a sure proof that a powerful performance brings onstage a vibrant space of conflict and passion, that theatre and film can feed each other and create together a brilliant cocktail of human emotions, going way beyond words and stories.

Directed by Jay Scheib

Leave a comment

Full Name: Email:

enter code above:

* Email address required for verification and does not appear with comments. - (Comments may not show up immediately)

http://www.berkshirefinearts.com/?page=article&article_id=252&catID=10&category=10&se=jay%20scheib[7/30/09 3:19:12 PM] A little of everything - The Boston Globe 03/21/2007 01:26 AM

THIS STORY HAS BEEN FORMATTED FOR EASY PRINTING

Jay Scheib (right) makes video a central focus of his work, says Leah Gelpe (left), who handles the video in Scheib's work, "This Place Is a Desert." (Essdras M. Suarez/Globe Staff) THEATER A little of everything Video, break-dancing, and dodge ball are all in Jay Scheib's new theater piece

By Geoff Edgers, Globe Staff | March 18, 2007

Even as a student, Jay Scheib wasn't afraid to take chances.

In the early '90s, while an undergraduate at the University of Minnesota, he made his directing debut with a piece that called for his cast to enter a stage littered with trash and a huge mound of earth, stop, and remain quiet and still for 72 minutes. "The Device Machine," presented at a theater festival in Hungary, garnered no applause.

"The place was roaring with laughter for the first 12 minutes," Scheib recounts one recent morning in the Stata Center cafe at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he's an associate professor of music and theater. "Then there was heckling."

In comparison, Scheib's latest piece, "This Place Is a Desert," which runs at the Institute of Contemporary Art Thursday through Sunday, could be considered a crowd pleaser. Inspired by the films of Michelangelo Antonioni ("Blowup, "L'Avventura" ), it presents a tale of relationships gone bad, framed by Scheib's twisted, pop-culture savvy sense of humor. Six hand-held video cameras track the actors from different angles through a set shaped like a house, projecting their images on four panels above. There's also break-dancing, dodge ball, nuclear disaster, and a romantic scene done partially in Italian.

For Scheib, who believes in using cinematic tools to make theater more powerful, "This Place Is a Desert" is nothing revolutionary. It's just the latest of his hybrid creations. For the ICA, the production is something else: a tough sell.

"This is probably the riskiest thing I'm doing this spring," says David Henry, the ICA's director of programs. That's because it's so hard to categorize. "It's not a dance, but it's as physical as a lot of dance I've seen. It's not a film or video, but you spend a lot of time watching a screen. It's not theater, but there's a set and actors down there."

The script was developed largely out of a series of rehearsals and workshops that culminated two years ago in a short version performed at the Prelude Festival in New York.

http://www.boston.com/ae/theater_arts/articles/2007/03/18/a_little_of_everything?mode=PF Page 1 of 3 A little of everything - The Boston Globe 03/21/2007 01:26 AM

The main characters -- four couples in various states of dysfunction -- "are essentially demolishing each other," says Scheib. "In dealing with their loneliness, some of them embrace the impulse to make things worse."

Though Scheib's work is emotionally charged, the curly-haired director, 37, is soft-spoken in person. He's tall, about 6 foot 4, and 190 pounds, only a bit heavier than he was in high school, where he was a standout high jumper.

There's nothing new about using video in theater. But Leah Gelpe, the New York artist who handles the video in this production, describes Scheib's approach to the medium as unique.

Gelpe, who recently worked on the American Repertory Theatre's production of "Britannicus," says that Scheib doesn't merely use video as a complement to his plays, he makes it a central focus of the work. The cameras are brought in as early as the first rehearsal. "This is the only way to develop the media hand in hand with the performance," says Gelpe.

Scheib says his use of video is an important link to his research at MIT, which focuses on integrating media with live performance. People throughout the world are familiar with movie techniques, he notes.

"They're used to jump cuts, and seeing a story told through cinematic techniques," says Scheib. "Whereas a lot of people are just bored at the theater."

The VCR revolution Scheib's attachment to film began in Iowa. His father ran a farm. His mother worked as a warden at the state prison. The family TV got only three channels, and the town's lone movie house showed second-run mainstream films. Then videocassettes arrived, and the teenage Scheib found himself mesmerized by Pasolini and Godard, John Hughes and Clint Eastwood.

Driving a tractor all day long developed his visual sensibility, Scheib says, his sense of scale and the landscape. He also noticed changes as the farm economy of the 1980s began to collapse. Barns went unpainted. Families moved away. That sense of desolation stuck with him and runs through his work.

At the University of Minnesota, where he would earn his undergraduate degree in theater arts, a professor exposed Scheib to the work of the Polish theater director Tadeusz Kantor . Scheib began to stage productions, first in the basement of a school gymnasium, then in the abandoned rehearsal space of the Minnesota Opera, and later on the stages of international festivals.

In 1997, Scheib entered Columbia University's graduate program in theater directing, where he would study under Robert Woodruff and Anne Bogart.

"When he applied, I looked at his material and said, 'This guy's already a rock star,' " remembers Bogart. "He's clearly got a major career. His three years at Columbia, he basically used Columbia to do his projects."

In New York, Scheib also met Gelpe and developed a rapport with some of the actors who will come to the ICA for "This Place Is a Desert." April Sweeney, who is in the show, says that working with Scheib is liberating. He creates a script but leaves in opportunities -- the dodge ball game in "Desert," for example -- to allow a moment to shift and turn differently each night. Most importantly, she says, he doesn't abide by the rigid rules that she feels govern much of regional theater.

"You go to work in regional theater, and you only have a certain amount of time to make a play, actors aren't supposed to talk that much, and there's sort of this acceptable way of rehearsing and working," says Sweeney. "It's about doing a job as opposed to doing a piece of theater."

Confronting reality "Desert" opens with a cameraman who has two names (Haskell Wexler, after the real-life cinematographer, and Glen Chick, after the real-life operator of the Three Mile Island control room) shooting away. Cut to a woman crying, a man working out, and another woman reading a Raymond Carver book with her cancer-stricken friend, named William Faulkner, in the room. Another character, called Richard Harris, is the son of the man who designed the reactor at Chernobyl.

What does it all mean? http://www.boston.com/ae/theater_arts/articles/2007/03/18/a_little_of_everything?mode=PF Page 2 of 3 A little of everything - The Boston Globe 03/21/2007 01:26 AM

Scheib describes the play as an examination of human loves and emotions in the face of industrial developments. He draws on Antonioni, he says, because the director explored those themes. But the play also incorporates testimonies from the Chernobyl and Three Mile Island disasters.

"I think anyone who expects a staging of one of Antonioni's films will be disappointed," says Scheib. "Maybe outraged."

As for the colorful names, some are purely comic asides, while others have deeper meanings. Harris, the late actor, performed in Antonioni's 1964 film "The Red Desert." Faulkner created an entirely fake universe -- Yoknapatawpha County -- to heighten the reality of his novels, a concept that intrigues Scheib.

As in all his productions, the idea is to get as close as possible to his characters, whoever they are. He doesn't want them to speak with put-on accents or to hide anything, physically or emotionally. And video technology helps make that kind of intimacy possible.

"I'm working from the same position as a typical director," says Scheib. "It's just that I'm using some of the tools in our hands. I can be close to the action, I can see around corners, and I can present a stage design that turns the rules of stage design on its head.

"We're trying to get as close to reality as possible," he says. "In a way, my interest in theater is the same as it was it was in the 1880s. . . . Using fiction to confront reality and using reality to confront fiction. That's my slogan, if I had one right now."

Geoff Edgers can be reached at [email protected].

http://www.boston.com/ae/theater_arts/articles/2007/03/18/a_little_of_everything?mode=PF Page 3 of 3

Scene4 Magazine, International Magazine of Arts and Media

February / March 2009

The Steiny Road To Operadom with Karren Alenier

Conversation with a Genius

The Steiny Road Poet thinks she has met a genius—director Jay Scheib, who in six months read and digested Gertrude Stein's 900-plus-page novel The Making of Americans. After the Poet gasped, she could hear the director shrugging as they each held a telephone receiver to their respective ears on January 8, 2009.

BIRTH OF A NATION, BIRTH OF A STEINIAN OPERA

Composer Anthony Gatto approached Scheib suggesting they collaborate on a Stein-based project. Gatto wanted to use Stein's voice (i.e. text from her novel The Making of Americans] with his original electronic music set to the film Birth of a Nation. Scheib said D. J. Spooky (Paul D. Miller) had already done something similar with this film and so Scheib told Gatto that he wanted to do a "real adaptation of Stein's novel" to create a chamber opera. When Scheib asked Gatto what he thought, Gatto said he hadn't read the novel, that he was only familiar with excerpts, particularly those recorded by Stein in her voice so Scheib picked up the heavy tome and started reading. He said he had to be careful to pay attention because in Stein's repetitions were sudden bits of vital information that might be easily missed. "I could read for four hours and miss the point because I started daydreaming and missed one key sentence that may have appeared once in two hundred pages."

POINTS OF CONNECTION

Less than a week before the premier of the Scheib-Gatto opera The Making of Americans, the Poet got an email from her fellow Steinian Hans Gallasemail and web surfs a little while she works. She can’t decide if she hopes they call her back for another day or not. On Thursday nobody calls. She lugs two bags of books to sell at Cooper’s, but they only take her Joy of Cooking and a Billy Collins collection. Later, she does laundry and has a frugal but yummy dinner of a baked potato with cheese and broccoli. On Friday she is queen of Atlantis. He

1 said he just heard about The Making of Americans opera but he couldn't get there. The Poet did a Google search on Anthony Gatto and found a juggler by that name and then the composer. What clinched the Poet's decision to get on a plane December 12th for that night's first performance in cold Minneapolis was that Gatto had also written a piece of music based on Paul Bowles' novel The Sheltering Sky. Jane and Paul Bowles are the subjects of the Steiny Road Poet's second opera libretto.

One more thing that the Poet did was contact Gatto by email to get a personal vibration and see how much access she could have to him after the performance. In those exchanges—email and a brief encounter in the theater after the performance—Gatto emphasized that this opera was a collaboration with Scheib. Except for points of clarification related to who certain characters were in the opera cast, the Poet wrote her Scene4 review of the Scheib-Gatto opera without benefit of the phone interview with Scheib. The Poet had read enough of Stein's novel to know that the handling of Stein's ideas and the selection of text for the opera preserved the integrity of Stein's landmark Modernist novel. What the Poet did not know before she finished writing her review was Scheib's reputation for the use of video in his work.

PORTRAITURE AND IMAGES IN MOTION

In a telling article entitled "A Little of Everything" written for The Boston Globe by Geoff Edgers dated March 18, 2007, Edgers quotes the New York artist Leah Gelpe as follows, "Scheib doesn't merely use video as a complement to his plays, he makes it a central focus of the work." Also, Edgers stated, "Scheib says his use of video is an important link to his research at MIT, which focuses on integrating media with live performance."

Therefore, the Poet had no idea how large her second question was—could you talk about your use of video in this opera and how it relates to the choreography or actor movement? However, Scheib took this in stride saying he had "two to three things he wanted to accomplish with this opera." His

2 approach was built on "portraiture" and "images in motion." He used the video to set up portraits of his characters and then "catch the reflection of a single performer in relation to the event on stage." In keeping with Stein's influence from Picasso and her intention to present a story from multiple points of view, Scheib's guiding motif was cubism, using video to achieve simultaneity. By processing the live video feeds, he said he hoped to delve into the deep logic of Stein's writing. For example, he explained, the ballerina would run into the house and perform a pirouette and later appear on stage performing the same thing, but this time, there would also be the video running that showed her inside the house performing the earlier pirouette. Scheib said he wanted to immerse the viewer in the experience and he hoped that Gatto's music would accomplish this as well.

THE ALGORITHM OF DANCE

Next the Poet asked him to talk about who his dancers were. He said he has a studio workshop at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) where he teaches performance media and dance theater. His students are budding mathematicians, aerospace engineers, and other scientists. The dancers in The Making of Americans were selected from his students at MIT. What he worked on with this selected group of dancers was "use of repetition, how to handle architecture, tempo, use of basic ballet forms which much like in novel deteriorate over time. A ballerina gets dropped over and over. We developed this by looking at passages of the novel. We developed an algorithm where they could improvise in time-space, how they kinesthetically react. We had nine rehearsals with the total cast but the dancers had to be ready to improvise.

THE ACTOR WITH A VIDEOGRAPHIC MIND

Another point of curiosity for the Poet was Tanya Selvaratnam who played the part of Mary Maxworthing. The Poet wanted to know if he selected the text she recites at the end of the play with this particular actor in mind. The text she delivered was extremely repetitious and had to be a challenge to memorize. Scheib said Selvaratnam has "photographic memory" and that he wanted her to recite the entire last chapter of Stein's novel, except he had to compromise with his collaborator and therefore only one fourth of Stein's text was used in the speech delivered by Selvaratnam as Mary Maxworthing. Respectfully, the Poet felt that had Maxworthing's recitation continued any longer than it was, the focus of the opera and the energy it had accrued would have suffered.

Additionally, the Poet had noticed after the performance that, in the actor's bio printed in the playbill, Selvaratnam had acted in the Wooster Group's House/Lights (a performance piece that mixed Stein's play Doctor Faustus Lights the Lights with a grade B porn movie) in March 2005 and that she had an intimate connection to the use of video. Up to Selvaratnam's extended recitation, the Poet kept wondering who the woman walking through the scenes with a bouquet of flowers was and how eerie and larger than life she seemed.

3 FINDING THE NEW FREAKS

One other thing that the Poet wondered about was the house that sat on the stage and how it's architectural structure affected the dramatic action and why it had been billed as a "little house on the prairie." Was this an attempt to draw in the Minnesotans, who to the Poet's experience with Minnesotans met along the way and in the crowd at premier of The Making of Americans seemed like an extraordinary audience for experimental art? To this, Scheib said the attempt to connect the house, which was a piece not specifically built for this opera by multimedia artist Chris Larson, to the Midwest and Stein's location of her novel was not fully realized. Earlier, Scheib had commented this was "the first outing with the piece and it was still an experiment for now."

To ratchet back to the bigger view, the Poet asked, "What are the critical elements in your mind that move opera into the 21st century?" Scheib answered that he saw new opera as "interesting synthesis of the experiments of the last 100 years. Somewhere between Handel and Luigi NoNo. This is what will keep opera alive." What was important to him was combining the old with the new. When asked what was the best city to present new operatic work, he said, "Boston is a great city to do that in because there are so many composers, musicians, and music lovers there. But, of course, New York City is a good place too. I wasn't in Minneapolis long enough to get a sense of what the reaction was, but the reaction of the audience seemed very strong and no one was walking out so it [The Making of Americans] seemed to have been well received." He also said he liked working in Germany, where he can present radical work for what a conductor he once worked with called the "new freaks."

Finding what is new out of what is familiar seems to be a gift Scheib has and, for a "first outing," The Making of Americans was exceptionally well put together and emotionally compelling. The Steiny Road Poet would love to hear the music again as well as experience the next production.

Photo - N. White

Scene4 Magazine — Karren Alenier Karren LaLonde Alenier is the author of five collections of poetry and, recently, The Steiny Road to Operadom: The Making of American Operas and she is a Senior Writer and Columnist for Scene4.

http://www.scene4.com/html/karrenalenier0209.html

4 Scene4 Magazine, International Magazine of Arts and Media

February / March 2009

by Karren Alenier

What does new American opera look and sound like? This critic suggests new American opera both embraces what is innovative with subtle incorporation of what is old and in achieving a finely tuned balance awakens its audience in that fleeting window of the present moment. Such operas happen with rare frequency because any opera premiere is expensive and requires the support and cooperation of exponentially more people then are seen on stage during such a production. This critic had the rare pleasure to experience such an opera off the beaten path at the Walker Art Center's McGuire Theater in Minneapolis, Minnesota, when she attended on December 12, 2008, the opening night performance of The Making of Americans by composer Anthony Gatto and director Jay Scheib based on text Scheib took from Gertrude Stein's ground- breaking novel The Making of Americans: Being a History of a Family's Progress.

The Making of Americans page 1 NARROWING 900 PAGES TO 100 MINUTES For anyone who has had the curiosity and courage to dip into Stein's 900-page- plus novel, which is filled with the painstaking details of a middle class family across many generations, one would now be wondering what aspect of this non- narrative novel Scheib featured in this 100-minute opera. The best way to answer this is to provide the synopsis listed in the Walker Art Center program brochure:

Prelude

Act 1

Scene 1: Mr. Hersland, Sr. reflects on the loss of his wife

Scene 2: History is repeating, changing. Martha Hersland considers a whole life repeating.

Scene 3: The marriage of Julia Dehning and Alfred Hersland

Act 2

Scene 1: Martha Redfern-Hersland reflects on her recent divorce.

Scene 2: Alfred Hersland and Julia Dehning reflect on breaking up.

Scene 3: The funeral oratorio of David Hersland he reflects on his life, his lover, Mary Maxworthing, and his family.

Epilogue: Mary Maxworthing reflects on living and dying and being in family living.

The Making of Americans page 2 To Scheib's credit, his interpretation of Stein's generational saga based on the psychological portraits of her parents—represented in the novel by David and Fanny Hersland—and other family members—is not literal or chronological. For example, Stein opens her novel with the apocryphal vignette of the angry man who drags his father through the old man's orchard while the father shouts, "Stop, I did not drag my father beyond this tree." While Scheib does enact this powerful moment, he does not open the opera in this way. In the applied method of Stein, Scheib goes for a cross-pollination of artistic forms. In his program notes, he writes, "This opera is neither a painted canvas, nor sculpture, nor literature but some unusual combination of all of these. What we are seeing will be informed by what we are hearing."

THE CONVERSATION OF OPPOSITES As the audience entered the three hundred and fifty seat auditorium which was mostly filled, two women periodically rolled through the stage as if swept along by a hurricane force, except they looked like figures being viewed in slow motion film footage. In Chris Larson's design, the stage featured a two-storey house outfitted with a video camera as well as a small orchestra and a projection screen where video footage shot from within the house could be seen by the audience. In addition to the musical performance by singers and orchestra, spoken voice performance, and streaming and freeze-frame video projections, the production integrated fluid choreography that often had elements of yoga postures. These antithetical combinations: sung versus spoken words, live versus still video projection, and active dance versus yoga postures produced a surprising

The Making of Americans page 3 dialectic in this reviewer. Did I see what I thought I saw? Did I hear correctly what was delivered? Yes, these elements were repeated so there was time to digest what was being shaped and delivered from the stage. In Gertrude Stein's vocabulary, the "syncopation"—the gap in time between what was delivered on stage and what was received by the audience member—narrowed to a comfortable interval of real time, achieving engagement in the present moment.

Anthony Gatto's music also achieved a conversation of opposites. For example, in scene 1, Mrs. Hersland sang in a musical style reminiscent of plainchant, a type of monophonic music going back to the sixth century, A.D. and associated with religious liturgy, while Mr. Hersland, in answer to his wife, sang in a style reminiscent of the twentieth century cutting-edge music theater work of Kurt Weill, such as The Three Penny Opera. Other musical styles that entered Gatto's palette included compositions that sounded like Jewish folk songs, a nod to Aaron Copland's opera The Tender Land, and stately Renaissance airs.

If one listens to the prelude to The Making of Americans, one hears a Minimalist repetition of church bells that seems to tick out an urgency about life in general. Greatly enhancing the delivery of the music for this production was a collaboration between Zeitgeist, a chamber music group of two percussionists, a woodwind player and a keyboardist, and the JACK Quartet, a New York City- based string group of violins, viola, and cello.

By no means does this reviewer intend to intimate that Gatto's music is either derivative or unfocused. Gatto has achieved with this original, lyrical, and mostly

The Making of Americans page 4 tonal work a fine balance between subtle references to the history of musical styles and his own musical voice. With this anchor into the distant and near past, he achieves an integrity that wakes up the senses and is highly compatible with what Jay Scheib accomplishes in his mise-en-scène or, as Scheib prefers, gesamtkunstwerk, a term coined by Richard Wagner referring to operatic work that integrates music, theater, and visual arts.

Another aspect of Gatto's yin-yang sensibility was his edgy introduction of a countertenor, which this critic thought came to represent the voice of Gertrude Stein. Gatto wrote the part of David Hersland, Jr. for the accomplished performer David Lee Echelard who brought his Volksgurdy, a contemporarily made Hurdy- gurdy based on Renaissance design, to the stage as melodic (and not the typical drone) accompaniment for his plaintive but sensual aria about how Julia was the only one who found him worthy and important. Occasionally, contemporary opera draws on the resources of rare countertenor voices that typically find opportunities in the Early Music arena. Echelard's challenging and moving performance in Act 2 requires him to sing about sadness (the sadness that comes when no one listens) while lying belly down on a table. In this aria, the countertenor channels the voice of Gertrude Stein, but it could also be the voice of a new music and opera composer.

SPOKEN WORD ACTOR'S TOUR DE FORCE PERFORMANCE Periodically through the scenes, a mysterious woman walked around the stage with a bouquet of flowers. Eventually, one came to the understanding that she was David Hersland, Jr.'s lover, Mary Maxworthing. According to an email exchange with Jay Scheib on January 8, 2008, Mary Maxworthing is a character in Stein's novel that Scheib has "loosely associated with David, Jr." In the epilogue, Tanya Selvaratnam as Mary Maxworthing executes an extended spoken word performance with tears streaming down her face that heightens the emotional wallop of the opera and especially harkens back to Echelard's sadness aria even if one is uncertain who this woman was. The combined effect of the tail end of the opera presents like the cemetery scene in Thornton Wilder's Our Town, which seems entirely appropriate since Stein greatly influenced Wilder before he wrote this classic for American theater. If anything would convince a lover of fine literature to pick up The Making of Americans, Stein's hefty tome, it would be Selvaratnam's performance at the close of this extraordinary chamber opera.

THE MELDING OF IMAGE AND MOVEMENT While the use of video and film footage is happening more often in theatrical stagings, Scheib's use of video meshed well with the structure of Stein's psychological novel, which does not follow a linear path. It also had the effect that reality TV creates with its "spying" on the lives of ordinary people. Much to Scheib's good judgment, the video aspect did not overwhelm the live performance, which was also accented in compelling ways by the choreography. The odd thing about the dancers that Scheib chose for this production is that they

The Making of Americans page 5 were not per say professional dancers, but students or graduates of Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in such subjects as neuroscience. Nevertheless, the dancing was every bit as moving as anything on stage by known modern dance companies founded by such greats as Alvin Ailey, Paul Taylor, or Merce Cunningham. Costuming for the dancers created by Oana Botez-Ban especially caught this critic's eye. The understated costumes seemed appropriately attractive to movement but also entirely comfortable for the dancers.

Most of the innovative American opera is taking place in tiny windows of time and often in places off the beaten path if one considers major cities, starting with New York, the cultural hubs for such events. Universities and colleges, as opposed to well-known opera companies, often are major players in producing new operatic works. In the case of Gatto's and Scheib's The Making of Americans, the producing organization was an art museum but hardly a warehouse for relics.

Production Photos - Cameron Wittig

The Making of Americans page 6 MUSIC | "The Making of Americans" at the Walker: Baaaaaad! ... http://www.tcdailyplanet.net/article/2008/12/13/music-making-...

MUSIC | "The Making of Americans" at the Walker: Baaaaaad!

Gertrude Stein and Rudy Ray Moore

BY JAY GABLER , TC DAILY PLANET December 13, 2008 This weekend, Twin Cities residents had the opportunity to experience two daringly stylized, profoundly insightful meditations on American culture. The Walker Art Center staged the world premiere of the opera The Making of Americans, adapted by Jay Scheib and Anthony Gatto from the novel by Gertrude Stein; and the Riverview Theater presented a rare screening of Dolemite, the epic 1975 Rudy Ray Moore film about a kung fu street war between two L.A. pimps. I saw Dolemite on Friday night and The Making of Americans on Saturday night, so I was able to enjoy two very different but pleasantly complementary views on life in our great nation. A comparison is instructive.

On Repetition The Making of Americans: All our feelings and actions are cyclical. It is only through repetition that we discover who we truly are.

Dolemite: Don’t ask that girl to repeat herself—you heard her the first time. She said she’s waiting for Dolemite, motherfucker!

On the Music of Life The Making of Americans: A string quartet and a contemporary music ensemble, with a little bandoneón and hurdy-gurdy thrown in for instrumental color.

Dolemite: Funk, with a little bongo thrown in for instrumental color.

On Sex The Making of Americans: Tortured tabletop copulation, with singing, relayed to a big screen by live video feed.

Dolemite: Ecstatic copulation in the love den of a woman who used to turn tricks in Dolemite’s brothel but, though now living independently, bailed his ass out of jail because she just wanted him that bad. With slapping. Relayed to the big screen by Comedian International Enterprise Productions.

On Violence

1 of 2 12/14/08 8:02 PM MUSIC | "The Making of Americans" at the Walker: Baaaaaad! ... http://www.tcdailyplanet.net/article/2008/12/13/music-making-...

The Making of Americans: Emotional, symbolized by a hail of nutshells and the bare-handed uprooting of plants.

Dolemite: Physical, symbolized by a hail of Hush Puppies in your motherfuckin’ ass and the bare-handed uprooting of Willie Green’s entrails.

On Drinking The Making of Americans: One can of Grain Belt Premium, consumed slowly and deliberately.

Dolemite: At the age of one he was drinking whisky and gin. At the age of two he was eating the bottles they came in.

On Those Who Have Gone Before Us The Making of Americans: We are haunted by the sins of our fathers, and yet doomed to repeat their mistakes.

Dolemite: If you see a ghost, you cut that motherfucker.

I could be wrong, but I think this new opera may just elevate Gertrude Stein to her proper place beside Rudy Ray Moore in the American cultural pantheon. Jay Gabler is the Daily Planet’s arts editor.

Article Tags: Calhoun, Longfellow, Minneapolis, Arts, Daily Planet Originals, Entertainment, Local, Movies, Music, Theater

2 of 2 12/14/08 8:02 PM MPR: Production makes Gertrude Stein sing http://minnesota.publicradio.org/display/web/2008/12/12/steinopera/

THE CURRENT CLASSICAL NEWS LISTEN LISTEN LISTEN SATURDAY, DECEMBER 13, 2008 PLAYLIST PLAYLIST SCHEDULE 35° in TWIN CITIES (MORE CITIES) RADIO HEARTLAND : WONDERGROUND RADIO

Programs Go

Production makes Gertrude Stein sing by Euan Kerr, Minnesota Public Radio December 12, 2008

EMBED | HELP

A new opera being performed this weekend in Minneapolis has a lofty goal: to portray all Americans - past, present, and future. "The Making of Americans" is an adaptation of Gertrude Stein's novel of the same name. It gets its world premiere tonight at the Walker Art Center.

St. Paul, Minn. — Published in 1925, Gertrude Stein's "The Making of Americans" was described as a cubist novel.

It embraced the ideas of cubist painters, most notably Stein's friend Pablo Picasso. Cubists would paint images of objects disassembled into their component parts and then re-imagined them from several perspectives at once.

Stein's novel had a much larger subject.

"(It's )a telling of everyone, at every time, at every place," says director Jay Scheib.

Scheib says the novel is an extended portrait of multiple generations of a single family.

"For Gertrude Stein this creation of a history a single family's progress would in some way be symbolic of all Americans or most Americans," said Scheib.

"The Making of Americans" set sprawls across the stage of the Walker's "Stein very Maguire Theater. interesting said that in A small two story clapboard house, made by Minnesota sculptor Chris the theater Larson, sits on one side and mini-orchestra on the other side. There is you are very just one actor, but six solo singers, an 18 member chorus and several rarely in the dancers. same time as the It's a lot of activity, but Scheib wants to create a situation where the performance. audience is constantly in the moment. Either you are a little bit "Stein very interesting said that in the theater you are very rarely in the ahead of the same time as the performance," explained Scheib. "Either you are a performance, little bit ahead of the performance, i.e. you know what will happen i.e. you know next, or you are a little behind, and you are disoriented and trying to what will happen next. catch up to what is happening." Or you are a little behind, To help with this there are large screens mounted over the stage. and you are disoriented a "We use a lot of video in this production, so we film some scenes live, and then we manipulate those signals in real time," said Scheib. - Jay Scheib For example, there are cameras in the house allowing the projection of giant images of anyone inside to appear above the orchestra, images which can then be time shifted.

"The ballerina runs inside the house and performs a pirouette on camera, and when she comes outside the house to perform another pirouette, we still see her spinning on the screen even though she's now here in front of us."

The performers for "The Making of Americans" are drawn from all over. There are members of the St. Paul based Zeitgeist new music ensemble, and local singers Bradley Greenwald and David Echelard.

Other members of the ensemble come from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology where Scheib teaches drama. He says they bring their own dynamics and understanding to the production.

1 of 2 12/13/08 12:39 PM MPR: Production makes Gertrude Stein sing http://minnesota.publicradio.org/display/web/2008/12/12/steinopera/

The ballerina works for NASA during the summer, and one of the singers is a mathematician at MIT.

"I think they have an understanding of space and time," said Scheib, "a more radical understanding of space and time, and it just turns out they are able to apply it in performance."

The performers and images are in constant movement, giving the audience an impression of the larger world encompassed in Stein's novel.

The Walker's Performing Arts Curator Phillip Bither says he believes the ensemble has done a remarkable job of distilling Stein's novel, which he also believes may actually just be coming of age.

"It's a non-linear mediation about families and about the country of America and about multiple generations that is compelling and emotional and at the same time very rigorous both musically and theatrically," said Bither.

Bither says this is one of the few new contemporary operas around this year. Given a recent success over at the Guthrie he says composer Anthony Gatto joked it should be called the "Cubist Little House on the Prairie."

Joking aside, director Jay Scheib says he hopes audience members will realize Gertrude Stein's theatrical vision.

"The most ideal thing in my mind would be for someone to be engaged minute by minute and moment by moment, and be as much as possible at the same time as the performance that is happening before them," said Scheib.

Scheib also hopes the images from the show will return to audience members in coming weeks and months.

2 of 2 12/13/08 12:39 PM

November 13, 2006

THEATER REVIEW | BUENOS AIRES IN TRANSLATION FESTIVAL Never Mind Language. Excess Is Easy to Translate.

By JASON ZINOMAN

Daniel Veronese’s “Women Dreamt Horses,” one of the four plays in the Buenos Aires in Translation festival running at P.S. 122 through Nov. 19, begins with a “Blech!”

A frail-looking woman (April Sweeney) opens her mouth to talk and vomits all over herself. The five other casually dressed characters onstage stare blankly as she composes herself and then vomits again. After racing to the bathroom, she washes her mouth, returns and repeats the whole messy process about a dozen or so times.

This kind of absurd excess should prepare you for the rest of the festival, which includes, by my count, three dysfunctional families, two incestuous relationships, multiple murders, a topless retarded girl, wrestling sisters, boxing brothers, a few head locks and at least two characters losing their lunch.

Two years ago, when it was announced that the Australian-born Vallejo Gantner was taking over as artistic director of P.S. 122, he said he wanted to create more cross-cultural exchanges between this East Village institution and the rest of the world. By presenting (along with creative producer Shoshana Polanco) this ambitious series — which pairs Argentine writers with American directors — he has succeeded in making the downtown scene a little less provincial, even if the artistic results are mixed, at best.

A variety of styles is on display, ranging from the farcical (“Panic”) to the dreamily melodramatic (“Women Dreamt Horses”); from a multimedia drama in which the past keeps intruding on the present (“Ex-Antwone”) to a futuristic fairy tale (“A Kingdom, a Country or a Wasteland, in the Snow”).

What these dramas share, for the most part, is a dark, often violent worldview expressed with aggressive, crude and highly physical staging. Jean Graham-Jones translated all four shows, and her verbose work can occasionally sound off-key. (“I’m not indifferent to your drama” a character in “Panic” says.) One gets the sense that the directors are often trying to overcome the language and cultural barriers with rough and tumble stagings. The idea being: You don’t need a translator to explain vomiting.

“Women Dreamt Horses” is a caustic play about three brothers and their failing family business, set at a dinner party gone wrong. In the hands of the director, Jay Scheib, it breaks out into fight night at P.S. 122. And the bruising (and bruised) actors aren’t playing around with stylized shadow boxing. Their swings connect. Bettina (Zishan Ugurlu) slaps her husband, Roger (Jorge Alberto Rubio), on his bald head so many times that it sounds like applause, and he returns the favor with a bull rush that must have knocked her breath away.

Once again Mr. Scheib, whose past productions include a “Medea” told in reverse narrative order, will not be accused of conceptual subtlety, but his show does have a kind of visceral energy and

http://theater2.nytimes.com/2006/11/13/theater/reviews/13tran.html?pagewanted=print 1 anger, and it’s not out of keeping with the script. “You know what I’m realizing,” Bettina says in a line that seems like the inspiration for the entire production. “Violence is the topic of our times.”

“A Kingdom, a Country or a Wasteland, in the Snow,” by Lola Arias, a post-apocalyptic drama about a terrible family secret, also begins with a grappling match. The sisters Lisa (Andrea Moro Winslow) and Luba (Hayli Henderson), who live in a chilly wasteland with their parents, toss each other across the stage with abandon.

The sibling rivalry heats up when, while hunting for rabbits, the sisters find an orphan boy whom they see as husband material. This development worries their father (James Lloyd Reynolds) whose guilty face indicates that he knows something about the orphan that he’s not telling us.

Ms. Arias, whose writing has a tactile, sensual quality, sneaks in images of fetuses and drowning idiots to prepare you for the horrors to come. And even if the play’s shocks are hardly original, the director, Yana Ross, finds clever ways to stage them.

“Ex-Antwone” — a fragmented dream of a play by Federico León, who is described in the program as a protégé of the experimental theater legend Robert Wilson — takes place in the present, but just barely. Antwone, played moodily by Miguel Govea, seems stuck in his memories, which keep intruding on his day with his girlfriend, Stella (performed with wide-eyed warmth by Liz Dahmen), who provides what seems to be the sole comfort in his life.

Neither of these characters comes alive quite like the woman on the television set hanging above them, Antwone’s shifty-eyed mother (Corrine Edgerly). This paranoid nag hectors him throughout the show. It’s an exuberant hoot of a performance that could explain a lifetime of neuroses.

Perhaps the most disappointing show was Rafael Spreglburd’s “Panic,” a tedious two-hour farce produced with the Theater of a Two-Headed Calf (and directed by Brooke O’Harra), about a vulgar family scrambling to find a key to unlock a safe-deposit box that belonged to the patriarch who recently died.

It starts as a promising parody of horror movies, with the requisite violins and stark lighting, but quickly broadens its sights to, well, just about anything in pursuit of zaniness (a cop dressed like a stripper, incest played for laughs). There might be a cutting satire of bourgeois family values somewhere inside this lackadaisically paced production, but if so, it’s lost in translation.

The festival continues through Nov. 19 at P.S. 122, 150 First Avenue, at Ninth Street; (212) 352- 3101.

Correction: Nov. 16, 2006

A theater review on Monday about the Buenos Aires in Translation festival, at Performance Space 122 in the East Village, referred incorrectly to the translator of the festival’s four plays. The translator, Jean Graham-Jones, is a woman.

http://theater2.nytimes.com/2006/11/13/theater/reviews/13tran.html?pagewanted=print 2

Superfluities Redux by George Hunka, Artistic director, theatre minima November 2006 Buenos Aires in Translation (BAiT) Festival Women Dreamt Horses by Daniel Veronese, translated by Jean Graham- Jones. Directed by Jay Scheib. With Caleb Hammond (Ivan), Aimée Phelan- Deconinck (Ulrika), Jorge Alberto Rubio (Roger), Eric Dean Scott (Rainer), April Sweeney (Lucera) and Zishan Ugurlu (Bettina). Justin Townsend, lighting design; Oana Botez-Ban, costume design; Peter Ksander, scenic design; Peter Campbell, dramaturgy; Rachael Rayment, assistant director. Upstairs theater at Performance Space 122. 75 minutes, no intermission.

Women Dreamt Horses begins and ends with violence. As the audience takes their seats, a husband (Roger) and wife (Bettina) prowl the stage, in intense but loving physical battle, to the percussion of fleshy slaps; the percussive noises that close the play are those of gunshots. This externalization of internal sexual and aggressive drives is the core of Daniel Veronese's play about a dissolving family business, but writ large it expresses broader meditations on international violence. Jay Scheib's superbly performed, elemental production is as much a 75- minute dance piece with dialogue -- in almost never-ending motion, punctuated by tense tableaux of powerless desperation -- that points up, unfortunately, a few weaknesses of Veronese's alternately flat and lyrical script.

Rainer has called together his two brothers and their wives to discuss the closure of the family business; hosting this tendentious soirée are Bettina and Roger, who live in a half-finished loft (for which PS122's upstairs theatre, quite bare and windows open to 9th Street and 1st Avenue below, serves an eerily identical stand-in, in Peter Ksander's and Justin Townsend's deliberately low-tech design for which there are precisely two light cues: up at the start of the play, down at the end). Enter Ivan and Lucera, whose desire for a child has frightening consequences for poor Lucera, who spends much of the first ten minutes of the play throwing up; also enter, more dangerously, Rainer's wife Ulrika, who describes a screenplay she is writing about a woman's sexual reawakening which verges on a metaphorical bestiality involving horses. As the evening transpires and the characters give vent to the animalistic impulses that drive their shame, lust, and pride, the "business" (which has become, in the absence of belief, their sole constraint) disappears, and blood flows as the only, inescapable result.

The Latin American culture of machismo, demonstrated in such cultural products as the tango, gives Veronese an idiosyncratic insider's view of the ways in which physicality and gender drive society. The aggressively violent tussling and wrestling of the three brothers (one of whom is being slowly weakened by cancer) is curiously one-sided, with a homoerotic edge that also has its parallel in the history of the tango itself; the men constantly fight among themselves, occasionally taking on their partners, but the women remain quite isolated and alone, denied (or disavowing) even this violent same-sex physical contact. Bettina, an older and more mature woman, can draw aggression-as-affection from the youngest brother Roger, because she can see these dynamics the most clearly of the six characters. Ivan and Lucera's physical relationship seems stymied by their indecision about the wisdom of raising children. Finally, there's Ulrika, a walking explosion of violent mature sexuality, simultaneously threat and attraction to all of them. (Aimée Phelan-Deconinck's aggressive sexuality renders her imitation of a horse parade's angular regularity into an imitation of Nazi goose-stepping; no wonder that the self-effacing Rainer, here played in a profoundly and effectively restrained performance by Eric Dean Scott, is having trouble coping with it.) http://www.georgehunka.com/blog/bait.html 1 And coping is one thing these characters cannot do; in the dissolution of traditional business, family, and gender roles, flesh, blood, and physicality are all that are left. Veronese internationalizes Argentine machismo (the character names: Rainer and Ulrika [playing on the odd relationship between Argentina and Germany], Ivan, Roger), perceiving that machismo written, though subtly repressed, in European culture as well. The aggressive sexuality that Ulrika represents is not the cause of this dissolution; the dissolution provides an opening for the expression of it (and so she is the sole explicit artist among the three women, the others finding expression in domesticity). The final moment of the play presents the threat of continued, constantly reproducing animal bloodlust. Kudos to Veronese for courageously refusing to give in to moral judgement, but lucidly recognizing the potential for unending, eternal destruction.

Not so many kudos, though, for the unevenness of the script, an unevenness implicit in its structure. Among the violences of Women Dreamt Horses is a violence between two dramatic voices. At his best, Veronese finds in the murmuring and self-erasing, cautiously mumbled hemming and hawing of everyday conversation, an objective correlative for the disintegration of identity. His more lyrical voice trips this up. The sleek, muscular, wild horse as a metaphor for desire, and the visual dynamic of animal lust as presented in the horse (so common it's even made it to the cover of the latest issue of Lacanian Ink) is a rather uninspiring insight this late in the game, and once presented by Ulrika, the metaphor remains largely unexplored, and Lucera's closing monologue verges dangerously close to the sentimental and the lachrymose.

In the noise and lucid brilliance of Jay Scheib's production and outstanding performances of the cast (particularly the three women), this weakness may be subsumed in the physicality of the 75 minute running time, and Jean Graham-Jones' translation, profoundly suited for the stage, can't be blamed for these structural deficiencies. And the production itself is one of the most physically exciting of the festival so far (that alone is saying something). A word here also for Oana Botez- Ban's costumes, which trap and repress Lucera, Bettina, and the men; Ulrika, however, is draped in a near-diaphanous flesh-colored dress that frees her for exquisite sensual movement (Phelan- Deconinck is a veteran of the Bill T. Jones and Martha Graham dance companies). Botez-Ban must be the most brilliant costume designer in the city; rarely does downtown chic meet sexual elegance like this and so expressively serve the characters and the play itself. You will, for the above reasons alone, be very sorry indeed if you miss it.

http://www.georgehunka.com/blog/bait.html

http://www.georgehunka.com/blog/bait.html 2

MAGAZIN

eine Revolution» handelt (in der Odys- liebt und genau so tötet, die Liebe for- sierenden Kostüme, Masken und Pe- ler dramatischer Vorgaben in Echtzeit see von Propagandisten der französi- dert und Mord zugleich, formt sich ein rücken sorgen für angeschärfte, zuge- ab. Wortwörtliche Psychologie findet schen Revolution auf der Karibik-Insel Ensemble von furioser Kraft: ziemlich spitzte Stimmungen. Zudem hat Irina meist parodistisch statt, und das starre Haiti) vom notwendigen Scheitern wei- typisch Volksbühne. Aber wie neu – und Kastrinidis, zu Hause oft nur die lär- Diktum des amerikanischen Bühnenna- ßer Erlöser in der schwarzen Welt. Nel- überhaupt nicht abgenutzt. mende Marionette ihres Regisseurs, turalismus wird mit angebracht respekt- son Rodrigues entfaltet in der biblisch- Für São Paulo verstörend bricht die hier offensichtlich als Anchor Woman loser Leichtigkeit zur Seite gekickt. archaisch getönten Familien-Schlacht Inszenierung den vertrauten Blick: über- Vertrauen stiften können für Castorfs um den unbefriedbaren Hass, um tote lässt manche Szene zunächst dem (in «Methode», was wohl auch nötig war Argentinierinnen am Rande des Kinder und zwei schwarz-weiße Brüder Berlin ja inzwischen fast selbstverständ- bei den Kolleginnen und Kollegen vor Nervenzusammenbruchs mit immer derselben Frau im sexuel- lichen) Auge der in jeder Hinsicht fabel- Ort. Bevor die Geschichte vom «schwar- Der Berliner Stil schreibt sich sogar len Visier die Vision vom noch lange haft mit-agierenden Video-Kamera, be- zen Engel» mit dem letzten lustvollen in die Dramen selbst ein. So etwa nicht gelösten Widerspruch der Rassen vor sie die aus Spanplatten roh gezim- Hass-Mord im Badezuber endet, bleibt schwärmt die hip herumdilettierende – selbst in der prinzipiell ja auf deren merte Bühnenwand zerlegen lässt, die denn auch ihr Castorf-Müllers letztes Tänzerin Bettiana in Rafael Spregel- immerwährende Vermischung ausge- zuvor den Blick versperrte. Am Ende liegt Wort vorbehalten: der Abgesang auf die burds «Panic» von Berlin wie Tsche- richteten Gesellschaft Brasiliens. die Bühne quasi in Trümmern – und aus Maske des Todes, die die Revolution chows Mascha von Moskau. Um dem den Ruinen wächst Müllers Blick auf war, das Hohelied vom Sieger der Ge- noch eins draufzusetzen, tritt dann auch Black Power die drei Welten wie auf die Schlangen schichte, der sich ein Stück aus ihr noch eine Figur namens Marius von Castorfs «Negros» nun, eine Gruppe in den Straßen von New York. schneiden wird. Mayenburg auf. Das almodovareske afrobrasilianischer Schauspielstuden- Die Studierenden aber setzen den Drama um Mord, Inzest und Immobilien- tinnen und -studenten an der Univer- Die «Methode» wirkt Kontrapunkt – denn ihre schwarze Re- kauf wird leider jedoch trotz dieses sität von São Paulo mit stark ausge- Das Tempo des Abends, die Tempera- volte ist ja längst noch nicht zu Ende, guten Vorbilds von der Amerikanerin prägtem «black power»-Bewusstsein, mente und Temperaturen, das ausge- sie sehen sie, jenseits von Müller, längst Brooke O’Harra als Farce inszeniert. sind von Beginn an, mit Müller und über stellt Grelle, die Mischung aus Video wieder neu. War da was? Ja, da war Die drei anderen Festivalregisseure ma- Müller hinaus, der allgegenwärtig-be- und dem eigenen Zuschauer-Bild, die was: das furiose Beispiel für eine neue chen da einen ungleich besseren Job. drohliche Kommentar zur Fabel von Musik und die Bühne (recycelt aus dem Art von internationalem Grenzgang, der Juan Souki zum Beispiel inszeniert Rodrigues. Sie lagern sich zu Beginn, brasilianischen Nachbau von Bert Neu- alle Partner reicher macht. Frederico Leóns «Ex-Antwone» als Etü- demonstrativ weiß gekleidet und mit manns «Dickicht»-Szenario), die ironi- Michael Laages de des ironischen Non-Acting und ver- weißen Perücken ausstaffiert, unter Zei- setzt das fragmentarische Drama über tungspapier auf die Bühne – wie es auch den heroinsüchtigen Antwone, seine die (überwiegend schwarzen) Menschen geistig zurückgebliebene Freundin und ohne Dach überm Kopf jede Nacht tun seine überstarke, nervige Mutter mit müssen, unter den Brücken und in den Vitamin Berlin einer gehörigen Portion Sexiness. Die Hauseingängen von São Paulo; und Haupthandlung spielt sich bezeich- einer von ihnen, der Aufsteiger, der zu Argentinische Dramatiker mit Hang zum Existenziellen und amerikanische nenderweise um ein großes Bett herum spät kommt, wird mit dem grandiosen Regisseure mit Hang zur Ironie geben New Yorks ermüdeter ab und manchmal auch draußen auf Text vom «Mann im Fahrstuhl» zum Bohème-Theaterszene beim P.S. 122-Festival «Buenos Aires in Translation» der East-Village-Street, auf die Ant- roten Faden fast den ganzen Abend einen subkulturellen Vitaminschub wone durch die Fenster und Türen der hindurch. Erdgeschossbühne ein- und ausgeht. Gerade in der Begegnung mit die- ie Glanzzeit des P.S. 122, der ehr- aufgegeben, und überhaupt gab es Für fünf Minuten kommuniziert er dann sen Studierenden offenbart sich der D würdigen East-Village-Institution für ein cooles, kosmopolitisches Theater- schon mal lautstark und sinnfrei mit ganze Sprengstoff der Arbeit zwischen experimentelles Theater, war schon lan- Selbstverständnis zu sehen, das sich einem scheinbar zufällig vorbeilaufen- den Kulturen. Denn sie entdecken hier ge vorbei, als vor zwei Jahren unter an- verführerisch echt anfühlte. dem Hund. erstmals das, was für Castorfs Thea- fänglich großen Protesten der Austra- Das von Shoshana Polanco kura- Noch viel schnoddriger setzt Jay ter zwingend nötig ist: Mut zum Ich im lier Vallejo Gantner die künstlerische tierte BAiT bestätigt nicht nur die seit ein Scheib «Women Dreamt Horses» von Wir vor allem. Tatsächlich orientiert sich Leitung des Hauses übernahm. Gantner paar Jahren umlaufenden Gerüchte, Daniel Veronese um, eine Dinnerparty- selbst das modernere Handwerk des kündigte an, dass er das P.S. 122 wirt- dass Buenos Aires das regierende Epi- Saga um drei Brüder, ihr in den Sand Theaters in Brasilien noch stark am schaftlich rentabler machen und für zentrum des lateinamerikanischen Thea- gesetztes Familienunternehmen und klassisch-konventionellen Kanon. Aber interkulturellen Austausch zwischen ters sei. Das Festival macht auch kei- ihre Ehefrauen. Es wird wahnsinnig die schwarzen «Filhos de Olorum» dem East Village und dem Rest der Thea- nen Hehl daraus, dass der postdrama- schnell geredet, gerannt, geprügelt, ge- überschreiten hier in jedem Augenblick terwelt sorgen würde. Zumindest letz- tische Bühnenstil made in Berlin inzwi- schrien und auf überraschend attrakti- die eigenen Grenzen. Ihren Kolleginnen teres ist ihm mit seinem jüngsten Coup, schen zum Exportschlager geworden ve Weise gekotzt, und die Akteure spre- und Kollegen vor Ort allerdings, die dem Festival «Buenos Aires in Trans- ist. Regisseure wie Jay Scheib, Juan chen sich nicht mit ihren Rollen-, son- natürlich alle in den Vorstellungen sa- lation» (BAiT), gelungen. Das Festival Souki oder Yana Ross nämlich, die ihr dern Schauspielernamen an. Das klas- ßen, sind sie und ist ihr Spiel besonders brachte kürzlich eine Frische in die an- Handwerk nicht nur in Amerika, sondern sisch aufgebaute Familiendrama wird fremd geblieben. geschlagene Bohème-Theaterszene auch bei deutschsprachigen Theater- so zu einer Erzählung über die interna- Für den Kern der Rodrigues-Story Manhattans, die man schon lange für machern und Autoren gelernt haben, tionale Generation der Fünfunddreißig- verfügte Castorf über starke und pro- nicht mehr möglich gehalten hatte. Trotz setzen die gelungenen argentinischen jährigen, die am bürgerlichen Projekt minente Profi-Profile – Denise Assun- aller Finanznot sahen die vier präsen- Stücke mit einem Gespür für Ironie, der ökonomischen und familiären Si- cao vor allem, die als langjährige Pro- tierten Inszenierungen gut aus. Die an- Nonchalance und Authentizität ein, das cherheit scheitern und stattdessen ein tagonistin im «Teatro Oficina» mit vie- sonsten gängige Political Correctness stark an die besten Jahre von Pollesch, wenig selbstzerstörerisch vor sich hin lerlei Exzess vertraut ist. Um ihre Figur wurde für existenzielle und manchmal Ostermeier, Castorf oder Gotscheff er- trinken, rauchen und rumficken. Das der Virginia herum, die hemmungslos blutrünstige Dramen made in Argentina innert. Theater spielt sich hier trotz al- Ganze sprüht so sehr vor sarkastischer #

Theater heute 01· 07 69 MAGAZIN

# Coolness und bissiger Intelligenz, dass te endet mit einer Hochzeit, einer Ver- das Drama der Selbstzerstörung (die gewaltigung und drei Morden. Die als Traumpapa Lear Veroneses abgehalfterten Existenzen einzige überlebende Tochter fasst die Das «Asia Contemporary Theatre Festival» in Schanghai arbeitet am erst dann richtig Spaß macht, wenn Botschaft des Stücks konzise mit dem Glücklichsein sie ihre Liebsten mit hineinziehen kön- Satz «to be is to mess up and die» zu- nen), anders als im wirklichen Leben, sammen, «zu sein heißt zu versagen und appy Asia» war das diesjährige «A Crazy Night» nähert das historische durchaus unterhaltsam bleibt. Non- zu sterben». H «Asia Contemporary Theatre Festi- Drama durch populäre Songs und Gags chalance, auf amerikanischen Bühnen Anstatt nun das morbide Stück nur val» in Schanghai überschrieben. Frag- aus bekannten Fernsehshows der Jetzt- eigentlich ausgeschlossen, ermöglicht ironisch handhabbar zu machen, setzt te man Nick Yu, den verschmitzten wie zeit an und modernisiert den Plot, da hier die schlüssige Erzählung zeitge- Ross es mit behutsamer Schönheit in umtriebigen Festivaldirektor nach dem die begehrte Frau am Ende nicht nur nössischer Desaster. «Women» endet Szene. Das Bühnenbild sieht mit hoch- Motto, fiel die Antwort wellnessmäßig den Mächtigen, sondern auch ihrem mit einem Amoklauf, den keine der Fi- gestapelten Pelzen, einem nackten Bau- schlicht aus. Er fände, die Menschen Diener-Gatten eine Nase gedreht hat. guren überlebt. gerüst und einer schweren Holzwerk- seien zu gestresst, zu besorgt um ihr Für den deutschen Betrachter wirkt die bank aus wie eine Installation von Jo- wirtschaftliches Fortkommen, ihren be- Inszenierung des Verwirrspiels mitun- Hoffnungsschimmer im seph Beuys, nur sehr viel schicker. Lei- ruflichen Erfolg in der neuen Zeit. Des- ter altbacken: große Gesten und auf- post-apokalyptischen Brachland se Tango- und House-Rhythmen und halb möchte er, dass sie einmal ab- fälliges Beiseitesprechen, was man so Jelinek-Regisseurin Yana Ross dage- zarte, symbolische Schauspielgesten schalten können und für einen Theater- vermutlich nicht mal mehr im Boule- gen, die bekannteste unter den BAiT- kontrastieren die mörderischen Emo- abend glücklich sind. Nick Yus Bemü- vardtheater findet. Regisseuren, gibt sich dem postdra- tionsausbrüche der Figuren. Wo das hung um «Happiness» ist eine Form von Pionierarbeit im heutigen China. Das Schweigen nach den Mao-Jahren Festival, ursprünglich im japanischen Wesentlich zeitgemäßer und näher an Kobe als «Asian Theatre Festival» ge- einer westlichen Ästhetik präsentierte gründet, wurde erstmals vor einem Jahr sich da das Tanztheater «Play Play» von in Schanghai veranstaltet. Hier entwi- The Theatre Practice, einer Gruppe aus ckelt es sich langsam. Singapur. In einem White Cube lässt Wie bei so vielen Disziplinen des Choreografin Kuo Jing Hong vier in modernen Lebens, das binnen kurzer Weiß gewandte und mit schwarzen Pe- Zeit über die chinesische Gesellschaft rücken anonymisierte Performer die gekommen ist, fehlt es an der dazuge- körperlichen Möglichkeiten von Grup- hörigen Infrastruktur. So wie sich Mu- pendynamik durchbuchstabieren. Ab- seen für zeitgenössische Kunst ihre Be- wechselnd spielen die Darsteller mit- sucher erst heranbilden müssen, man- und gegeneinander, laden die als Re- gelt es dem Gegenwartstheater an ei- quisiten zur Verfügung stehenden Luft- nem interessierten Publikum; von einer kissen aus Zellophan mit je unterschied- ausgeprägten Kritik ganz zu schwei- lichen Bedeutungen auf, mal als Wol- gen. Beim Buhlen um die junge Zu- ken, mal als Handys, oder entlehnen schauerschaft sieht es sich in Konkur- sich Bewegungsmuster aus anderen renz zum Fernsehen, was Mitte der Kontexten wie Kampfposen aus Kung- neunziger Jahre mit dem Aufkommen Fu-Filmen, die bis zum Exzess aus- von Soaps und Sitcoms besonders probiert werden. Das Spiel, das immer schmerzhaft spürbar wurde. Um dem wieder neu beginnt, bleibt stumm, sieht Schwund entgegenzuwirken, sucht die man von den Vogelstimmen ab – je- Daniel Veroneses «Women Dreamt Horses» Bühne, das wurde beim «Asia Con- nen Blättchen, die auf die Zunge gelegt, – mit Jorge Alberto Rubio, Aimee Stück entmutigt auf die Sinnlosigkeit temporary Theatre Festival» deutlich, helle Laute erzeugen –, was den Per- Phelan-Deconinck und April Sweeney und Zerstörung blickt, spürt Ross klei- die Nähe zum Bildschirm. Die Auffüh- formern den Charme von Teletubbies

FOTO RACHEL ROBERTS ne Hoffnungsschimmer auf. rungen zielten, ob sie nun traditionelle verleiht. Noch ist der ironische postdrama- Stoffe aktualisierten, Alltagsgeschich- Auseinandersetzungen mit den matischen Untergrund nicht ganz so tische Berliner Theaterstil in New York ten erzählten oder Tanztheater wagten, neuralgischen Fragen der chinesischen ohne Weiteres hin. Ihre Inszenierung nur ein Trend für eingeweihte Szene- auf direktestem Weg ins Zuschauer- Gesellschaft blieben rar – ein Stück wie des Lola Arias-Stücks «A Kingdom, a gänger, Festivalreisende und Akade- herz: über Komik. «Activated Charcoal» von Nick Yu, der Country or a Wasteland, in the Snow» miker. Bei der reaktionären amerikani- Das Modern Troup Theatre aus normalerweise als Autor am Shanghai war der große Zuschauererfolg des Fes- schen Theaterkritik rief das BAiT ob sei- Schanghai lieferte hierfür mit «A Crazy Dramatic Arts Centre arbeitet, die Aus- tivals, vor allem weil Ross, vom euro- ner morbiden Themen und seiner fürs Night» das treffendste Beispiel. Das nahme. In dem Drama geht es um ein päischen Inszenierungsstil zwar inspi- hiesige Schauspiel beinahe ketzeri- Stück geht auf einen traditionellen Stoff junges Paar, das geschieden ist und nur riert, doch eine eigene, idiosynkratische schen Inszenierungen richtiggehend der Peking-Oper zurück, in dem eine dem Besuch ihres Vaters zuliebe zu- und handwerklich feine Theatersprache wütende Reaktionen hervor. Was ei- einfache junge Frau zum Objekt wenig sammenlebt. Durch die Geschichte des fand. «Kingdom» spielt in einem arkti- gentlich das beste Zeichen dafür ist, diskreter Begierde gleich dreier mäch- Vaters, seiner Suche nach einer lange schen, post-apokalyptischen Brach- dass etwas in Bewegung gerät und tiger Herren wird. Die Heirat mit einem verschwundenen Liebe, finden die bei- land, in dem sich eine klaustrophobisch dass diese Inszenierungen tatsächlich Diener nutzt sie, um ihre verschiedenen den Getrennten schließlich den Anhalts- enge Familie von frisch erlegten Kanin- als eine Art Vitaminschub für Manhat- Liebhaber gegeneinander auszuspielen punkt für einen möglichen Neuanfang. chen und tiefgefrorenen Kartoffeln er- tans Bohème-Theaterszene wirken und so als unterprivilegierte Frau über «Activated Charcoal» spielt, wenn auch nährt. Die biblisch anmutende Geschich- könnten. Daniel Schreiber Macht und Reichtum zu triumphieren. unausgesprochen, vor dem Hintergrund

70 Theaterheute 01· 07 Archived Show Review http://www.nytheatre.com/nytheatre/archshow.php?key=60

nyc theatre info, BAiT (Buenos Aires in listings, and reviews Translation) NOW PLAYING: Tonight This show was found in the 2006-2007 season archive on nytheatre.com. Tomorrow Plays nytheatre.com review Opened Musicals Saviana Stanescu · Nov 4, 2006 Nov 4, 2006 For Kids & Families Closed Under the direction of Vallejo Gantner, P.S. Late Night Nov 19, 2006 122 seems to have enhanced its tradition of Cabaret/Comedy presenting thought-provoking international Creative Producer New This Week work and edgy risk-taking performances. As Shoshana Polanco By Neighborhood part of their Buenos Aires in Translation Physical Theatre (BAiT) Festival, Women Dreamt Horses by Argentinean playwright Daniel MORE LISTINGS: Veronese, directed by the imaginative American Jay Scheib, has made an Coming Attractions impressive debut on the New York City scene. Festival Calendar One Night Only The play tackles issues like global and domestic violence inserted in Venue Listings Freudian dreamscapes, and wrapped in the little red package of a relationship drama. Three brothers and their wives meet for a dinner HELP ME CHOOSE A SHOW: party, but they never get to the food or the drinks as they move around Reviewers' Picks the room discussing such things as sweaty horses, surreal memories, Ticket Discounts Turkish pilaf, or a stolen cookbook. Almost each line hides (more or less) Stars on Stage a heavy sexual symbolism boiling in simmering violence: Trip Planner nytheatre Reviews RAINER: With that last take, from behind the horses' haunches, with the horses wobbling sensually over the EXPLORE NYTHEATRE: cobbles, you might get the idea that the horses are the Subscribe to our reason for the woman's getting all excited. That what's Newsletter provocative about the situation are the sweaty horses and How to Buy Tickets not the policemen. And it has certain logic. Interviews ULRIKA: You think? nytheatre FactFile RAINER: Yes. It's a known fact that adolescent girls dream People of the Year about horses when they begin to develop sexually. I mean it CDs and Books seriously. nytheatre buzz ULRIKA (containing her violence): Would you bring in that Links damned corkscrew, please.

BLOGS: Why to bring a child into such a violent and messy world?—is arguably Martin Denton the main question raised in this play by Veronese. (nytheatre i) Plays and Jay Scheib, one of the most cutting-edge artists of the moment, takes Playwrights the Argentinean's lines and pushes them into the physical world using a sexy and violent gestural vocabulary. The actors literally fight in the REVIEW ARCHIVES: performance space; the brothers' and couples' main interaction seems to Current Season be boxing, they "smash" themselves against the walls and against each

1 of 2 7/21/09 10:32 AM Archived Show Review http://www.nytheatre.com/nytheatre/archshow.php?key=60

Previous Seasons other. It's a fascinating tour-de-force for the actors in this show, and the bruises on their legs are not painted. It is obvious that the ensemble is OTHER MEDIA: completely committed to the director and the production. RSS Feed Podcasts Scheib's world is indeed violent and frightening, but also humorous in an Mobile unexpected way. The long opening scene with Lucera (the extraordinary April Sweeney) vomiting through all nine months of both pregnancies ABOUT THIS SITE: that she'd missed that completely. Zishan Ugurlu as Bettina, a woman 15 About Us years senior to her husband, seems to be the center of this dysfunctional Site Map family. She is tragic and funny at the same time, especially when she Reviewers/Staff describes their marriage: "And I understood then that that's what the List Your Show two of us are. All that together, the rice, the onion, and the asparagus. Support Us Even though we each have a different flavor, we complement each other." Aimee Phelan-Deconinck is impressive as Ulrika, the sensual sexually frustrated wife of Rainer (Eric Dean Scott). Caleb Hammond and Jorge Alberto Rubio invest lots of energy in portraying the other two brothers.

Oana Botez-Ban's costumes help in defining each character with precision, imagination, and wit. It is always great to see costumes with personality in a show, not just outfits meant only to dress but designed to infuse extra meanings.

And it is rare to see such a tough, passionate, powerful, and beautiful show on NYC scenes so I urge you to go catch it. Leave your fears aside and be prepared for gunshots and bodies wriggling onto the floor or jumping over the tables.

Google Search Search nytheatre.com Search the web

Home Contact Us Privacy/Terms of Use mobile.nytheatre.com shop.nyte.org

2 of 2 7/21/09 10:32 AM